Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 2131 Private (Pte) Francis Albert Torbitt. A clerk from Richmond Victoria prior to enlistment, Pte Torbitt embarked a long with his brother, Acting Corporal Edward Charles Torbitt (see DA13476) with the 3rd Reinforcements, 29th Battalion from Melbourne on HMAT Ballarat on 18 February 1916. On 19 July 1916, aged 19, he was killed in action at Fleurbaix and buried in the Eaton Hall Military Cemetery. His remains were subsequently exhumed and re-interred in the Rue-Petillon Military Cemetery, Fleurbaix, France. This is one of a series of photographs taken by the Darge Photographic Company which had a permit to take photographs at the Broadmeadows and Seymour army camps during the First World War. In the 1930s, the Australian War Memorial purchased the original glass negatives from Algernon Darge, along with the photographers’ notebooks. The notebooks contain brief details, usually a surname or unit name, for each negative.