Summary heading

Glass plate negatives

Function and purpose

This series consists of glass plate negatives of World War One memorials and cemeteries.

Little is known about the series and the titles of the items have been derived from handwritten annotations on the exterior of the Kodak cardboard boxes that the plates were held in prior to Conservation work in 1999.

These titles were as follows: 'Port Said', 'Mt St Quentin', Villiers Brettouneux'.

The last box (containing items [21] and [22]) was labelled 'William Dampier Memorial, Broome, WA 26/5/37' but on inspection item [21] was a photograph of a 1915 plaque commemorating a Middle Eastern force. Item [22] is a photograph of what appears to be a royal shield. It is not known whether this is from the Dampier Memorial.

A single number system was imposed on the plates by the National Archives at the time of conservation work. Date ranges and provenance are not firm.

History of Transfer: Transferred by Army, AHQ, Registry in ca. 1960's when Miss Exley was Senior Archivist Victoria, wrapped in a brown paper parcel bearing Miss Exley's handwriting. They were 're-discovered' in February 1973 in the sorting area. They had been stored, apparently without CAO [Commonwealth Archives Office] identification, between MT61 and MP1099.

Administrative information
The following has been keyed from the paper documentation:
Form number: CA 2
Transferring department: Army, AHQ, Registry
Archives file number: RWM30/2/4