Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 5757 Private (Pte) George Ray, 6th Battalion. A teamster from Mansfield, Victoria prior to enlistment, Pte Ray embarked with the 18th Reinforcements from Melbourne on HMAT Ayrshire on 3 July 1916. Following his transfer to the 14th Battalion, he was killed in action on 31 May 1918, aged 29, and was buried in the Allonville Communal Cemetery, France. This is one of a series of photographs taken by the Darge Photographic Company which had the concession 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.