Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 1891 Private (Pte) William Charles Cleary, 58th Battalion. A grocer from Emerald, Victoria prior to enlistment, Pte Cleary embarked with the 3rd Reinforcements from Melbourne on HMAT Ajana on 1916. Later transferring to the 57th Battalion, he was killed in action in France, aged 23, and is commemorated on the Villers-Bretonneux memorial. 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. See also DA15882.