Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives Accession Number: DA12961

Description

Studio portrait of 4236 Private (Pte) John Key. Originally from London, England, Pte Key was a labourer from Ballarat, Victoria prior to enlistment and embarked with the 13th Reinforcements, 14th Battalion from Melbourne on HMAT Demosthenes on 29 December 1915. Later wounded in the left foot, he was invalided to England. Subsequently declared an illegal absentee he was sentenced to two years intensive hard labour at H.M. Prison Tidworth. On 21 July 1917 he was released from prison and the remainder of his sentence was suspended. He returned to Australia on 3 September 1919 and suffering from an unspecified debility, he was medically discharged. 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.

Details

Conflicts

• First World War, 1914-1918