Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 4828 Acting Corporal (A/Cpl) John Henry Maddocks, 8th Battalion (identified in Darge book as J A Maddocks). A clerk from Box Hill, Victoria prior to enlistment, A/Cpl Maddocks embarked with the rank of Private with the 15th Reinforcements from Melbourne on HMAT Wiltshire on 7 March 1916. Later transferring to the 59th Battalion, he was reported as missing in action. A subsequent court of enquiry determined that he had been killed in action at Pozieres, aged 20, and had been buried in “no man’s land”. His remains were subsequently recovered and re-interred in the Ration Farm Military Cemetery, Lille, 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.