Ned Kelly Australian Ironoutlaw

Ask a group of Australians what they think of Ned Kelly and you will soon discover that there is little grey area. 125 years after Ned's death, opinions are usually either black or white. In general terms, the masses see Ned as either a merciless killer who unforgivably chose to take up arms against society, or as a national hero who was the embodiment of the Australian spirit.

The launch of the once–in–a–lifetime Ned: The Exhibition at the Old Melbourne Gaol re–ignited passions from both camps. And with several movies and a TV drama in production, a stream of new and reprinted books hitting the book shelves, and the release of the fifteen track Ned Kelly CD — all addressing the Kelly saga — the argument appears certain to rage for a considerable while yet. In fact, it’s doubtful whether the debate will ever end. Such is the emotional impact of the Kelly story.

Through it all, Ned emerges as an utterly imposing individual, as he did from the mist at Glenrowan, clad in his world–famous suit of armour, for his extraordinary ‘Last Stand’. Pro–Kelly sentiment is at an all–time high. Even before the latest spate of publicity, there were clear signs that more and more Australians felt that Ned had been given a raw deal. In 2000, a special Sixty Minutes episode revealed that 91% of people polled believed that Ned had not received a fair trial when he was sentenced to death for murder. Others go further, suggesting he was the victim of a vicious system; a young man hounded into crime and whose death fell little short of martyrdom. Even in his own brief lifetime, he became a legend.

Ned Kelly at 15 Ned Kelly age fifteen photographed in 1871 at Kyneton, Victoria.
Photo Max Brown

Today, in the eyes of many, he has become Australia's foremost folk–hero and a symbol of national pride. Certainly, Ned possessed qualities that far surpassed the other bushrangers of his era. He was an expert with a “running-iron” on stolen, unbranded stock and was a deadly–accurate shot with a revolver or a rifle. Despite being a largely self–educated man, he was surprisingly articulate, boasted an almost poetic turn of phrase and a sardonic sense of humour. Ned’s family meant everything to him and he was the man of the family at the age of twelve. He was fiercely loyal his friends and supporters, to the extent that he would risk his own skin to ensure the well-being of an ally.

Over the years the Kelly Gang have been the subject of numerous Books and articles; radio and Television programs; Movies and Theatre productions; and countless souvenir and consumer items. To better understand the Kelly uprising, we recommend further research starting with our book reference section. As readers we gain valuable insight into the depth of Kelly’s resolve. We need look no further than the famous exchange between Ned and his nemesis Sir Redmond Barry during the final stages of his Trial. It was here the self-important Barry, who prided himself on his eloquence and ability to match wits with the best of them, came unstuck when he initiated a courtroom exchange with a man of little formal schooling. That Ned showed Barry up for what he really was — a pompous aristocrat completely out of touch with the common man — became Ned’s final masterstroke.

Birth of a Legend

The Kelly cottage at Beveridge was constructed by Ned’s father ‘Red’ in 1859. The house has since under gone additional work including a corrugated iron roof. Today it’s state is close to condemnable.
Photo Matt Deller

Like most outlaws Ned Kelly died young, being only 25 when he was executed. He was expert with a “running-iron” on stolen, unbranded stock, and was a deadly accurate shot with revolver or rifle. Surprisingly articulate for a self educated man, he was clannish, loyal to his friends and supporters, and had a sardonic sense of humour. He became an outlaw, hunted for almost two years before he was shot down and hanged. To the last, his mocking courage never deserted him and to be “as game as Ned Kelly”; came to symbolise, in Australian folk-language, heroism of a reckless, audacious kind.

Ned Kelly was born at Beveridge, Victoria, in either December 1854 (the same year as the Eureka Stockade uprising in Ballarat), or June 1855, depending on which historian you listen to. His father, John Kelly, came from Tipperary, Ireland. In 1841 John “Red” Kelly was transported to Tasmania for seven years for stealing two pigs. Having served his time, he crossed to Port Phillip, Victoria, in 1848 and two years later married a girl called Ellen Quinn from County Antrim, Ireland. The Quinns lived at Wallan Wallan, 30 miles north of Melbourne.

Two of Ellen Kelly's sisters married members of the Lloyd family and for many years the Kellys, the Quinns and the Lloyds made a formidable clan. John and Ellen Kelly had eight children: Mary, Annie, Ned, Maggie, Jim, Dan, Kate and Grace. They lived on a small dairy farm near Avenel, having moved 40 miles north of Beveridge after Ned was born. Ned attended school at Avenel. It was during his school years that Ned risked his life to save a drowning boy, Richard Shelton, who was swept off the banks of the Hughes Creek and into the raging waters.

Ned's Sash “Ned was able to rescue the seven year old Richard Shelton from drowning when he fell in the creek opposite the Kelly home. His courage must have been exemplary for the Shelton family saw fit to make a public occasion of it by presenting him with a gold-fringed sash.”
Max Brown Australian Son

Shelton’s parents rewarded Ned’s bravery by presenting him with a green silk sash. In 1880 Ned was to wear it as a cummerbund under his armour during his last stand at Glenrowan. At the age of 12, however, young Ned had to leave school due to the sudden death of his father. The loss of the family breadwinner was a severe blow to the family, but Mrs Kelly was a determined woman. She moved her family to a slab hut on Eleven Mile Creek, not far from Benalla and halfway between Greta and Glenrowan, an area which was later to become known as Kelly Country.

Working in the Bush

It was inevitable that Ned, the eldest of the Kelly boys, should become a resourceful bush-worker while still in his teens. He did many things to earn a few shillings for the family, such as ring-barking, breaking in horses, mustering cattle, fencing and perhaps a little cattle-duffing on the side. Many of the settlers in the area were small selectors who were at constant war with the big landowners (the squatters) who, at any time, could call on the forces of law and order to protect their interests. In this social war can be found the key to Ned Kelly’s rebellion against authority. The Kelly boys, the Quinns, the Lloyds and the rest used horses like currency.

They regarded all unbranded strays as fair game and the police patrols as their natural enemies. The police in Kelly Country also bitterly resented the clannishness of the small selectors and were determined to break them. When Superintendent Nicholson, a Scot, took over the north-eastern police district, he was told that Mrs Kelly's house was a notorious meeting place for rogues and cattle-thieves. He gave Mrs Kelly a stern warning, to which she responded with a spirited retort.

In his official report, Superintendent Nicholson stated firmly, if injudiciously: “The Kelly gang must be rooted out of the neighbourhood and sent to Pentridge gaol, even on a paltry sentence. This would be a good way of taking the flashness out of them”. The forces of law had already been at work on the “Kelly Gang”, as Nicholson chose to call the family. At the age of 14, in 1869, Ned was arrested for assaulting a Chinaman. He was kept in the Benalla lockup for 10 days and then reluctantly released when the magistrate, Alfred Wyatt, dismissed the charge. A year later Ned was taken on a more serious charge, that of being an accomplice of the bushranger Harry Power. Again, the case against him was dismissed for lack of evidence.

Later, Power claimed bitterly that Ned had betrayed him for a reward which Ned hotly denied. Afterwards it was established that Jack Lloyd had been the betrayer. But the police did not relax their interest in Ned. He was jailed for six months for assaulting a hawker and in the following year, 1871, came disaster. He was sentenced to three years in Pentridge gaol for receiving a “borrowed” mare. The borrower was his friend Isiah“Wild” Wright, who inexplicably received a sentence of only 18 months.

Ned Kelly at 19 A surley looking Ned stares out from a Pentridge prison portrait taken in early 1874.
Photo Max Brown

An embittered Ned was released in 1874 and made his way home. He found that his mother had married again and her new husband, George King, was from California. He was later described by Ned as a clever horse-thief. King gave Mrs Kelly (she retained her first husband’s name) four children and then moved on. Ned had worked with him for a time, running stolen horses across the Murray River for sale in New South Wales. Brother Dan Kelly also fell foul of the law while still in his teens. He was given three months for damaging property, but later the chief police witness against him was charged with perjury. On his release from prison Dan went home unaware that the police, unable to find the horse-thief, King, had sworn warrants against both Ned and Dan. It was reported that Ned had slipped over the border into NSW, however, evidence suggests he was very close by on the night of the “Fitzpatrick Incident”.

The Fitzpatrick Mystery

The trooper who came with the warrant was a weak willed man named Alexander Fitzpatrick, who had called at a tavern on his way to Mrs Kelly's place to fortify his intent. He found Dan at home with Mrs Kelly and the girls, as well as Will Skillion (Maggie Kelly's husband) and a neighbouring selector named Williamson. About five minutes after the lone trooper entered the homestead violence erupted. Fitzpatrick made a drunken pass at Kate Kelly. Dan knocked him down and, in the ensuing scuffle, the trooper's gun went off and he cut his wrist, most likely on the door-latch. Mrs Kelly was full of concern. She bandaged his wrist and he was invited to have supper with the family and “let bygones be bygones”. On his way back to police barracks, Fitzpatrick had some more brandy. He then reported to his superiors that Dan Kelly had resisted arrest, and that Ned had burst into the room and shot him in the wrist. Ned then offered to cut out the bullet with a rusty razor blade but Fitzpatrick decline, opting to use his penknife to dig it out.

Ned Boxing Ned aged 19, taken by photographer Chidley from Melbourne. The photo celebrates the victory over “Wild” Wright in a 20 round bare–nuckle fight on August 8, 1874 at Beechworth to settle an old score over a stolen horse and it’s three year jail sentence.
Photo Private Collection

A doctor giving Crown evidence readily accepted the contribution of Fitzpatrick’s penknife to the injury, while apparently reluctant to state definitely that a bullet had been involved. Ned Kelly may have had a revolver at the time of the incident, but it seems highly unlikely that it produced the constable’s wound, certainly not as alleged by Fitzpatrick. Even the acting commissioner of police later admitted Fitzpatrick was “a liar”. In all likely hood both Ned and Joe was present at the Kelly homestead on the night Fitzpatrick came calling. By the time a troop of police had surrounded the Kelly homestead, the boys had gone bush. In spite of Mrs Kelly’s protests that Ned was 400 miles away and, anyway, nobody had shot Fitzpatrick, arrests were made. For assisting in the attempted murder of a police officer, Judge Redmond Barry sentenced Skillion and Williamson to six years each, and Mrs Kelly herself was sentenced to three years in gaol. Barry at the time also remarked that, “had Ned been present I would have sentenced him to twenty one years”. Later, Fitzpatrick was to be discharged ignominiously from the police force for misconduct in another case. But by then the damage had been done.

Ned Kelly swore vengeance. Restrained by his friends, he instead wrote an impassioned letter to Magistrate Wyatt, offering to surrender his own person “to any charge” in exchange for his mother, but Wyatt was powerless to act. By then the police were increasing their efforts to get Ned Kelly, so he and Dan vanished overnight from the district. The government offered a reward of £100 each for their apprehension. Ned and Dan went into hiding in the Wombat Ranges, some 20 miles from Mansfield in rough country. They cleared the ground and built a slab hut near the banks of a creek, and spent their time panning for alluvial gold.

Here they were joined by two old friends, Steve Hart a part time jockey from Wangaratta, and Joe Byrne son of a gold prospector at Beechworth. Both had previously served short prison sentences. Ned Kelly was a natural leader, but it was later revealed that he had no plans to carry out organised crimes from his hideout. The most that the four hoped to do was find a way to distill illicit liquor and then to sell it in a hope to raise enough money to mount a retrial for Ned and Dan’s mother.

The Stringybark Creek camp site, photographed a week after the deaths of three police.
Photo Victoria Police Historical Unit

Stringybark Shootout

Killed by Ned after a running firefight, Sergeant Michael Kennedy led the Mansfield party during their brief hunt for the Kelly’s.
Photo Victoria Police Historical Unit

The police hunt intensified. In late October 1878, Sergeant Kennedy, with Constables Lonigan, Scanlon and McIntyre, rode out from Mansfield. They wore no uniforms but all were heavily armed. On the 25th they made camp at Stringybark Creek, unaware that only a mile was the Kelly’s camp. Making one of his regular reconnoitres, Ned spotted the police camp and hurried back to raise the alarm believing, quite rightly, that he and Dan would be shot on sight. There had been recent, well-publicised cases of trigger-happy New South Wales police killing suspects and there is persuasive evidence that the Victoria police searching for the boys were equally likely to shoot first. One police officer was quoted as saying “If I come across Ned Kelly I’ll shoot him like a dog”.

Not only were the police well armed, they had also bought along a pack horse fitted with heavy leather straps, made specially for the expedition. The sole purpose of these straps was to lash tightly the bodies of Ned and Dan for their return to Mansfield. The next day, Kennedy and Scanlon rode out on patrol, leaving Lonigan and McIntyre in camp. The two troopers were relaxing by the campfire when Ned, Joe, Steve and Dan emerged silently from the bush. They challenged the troopers and ordered them to bail.

“I was compelled to shoot them, or lie down and let them shoot me it would not be wilful murder if they packed our remains in, shattered into a mass of gore to Mansfield, they would have got great praise and credit as well as promotion but I am reconed a horrid brute because I had not been cowardly enough to lie down for them under such trying insults to my people certainly their wives and children are to be pitied but they must remember those men came into the bush with the intention of scattering pieces of me and my brother all over the bush...”
from the Jerilderie Letter

Lonigan jumped to his feet and drew his revolver but Ned shot him dead. McIntyre surrendered immediately. When Kennedy and Scanlon returned to the camp Ned called to them to “bail up”. Instead the troopers opened fire. A gunfight followed, with the policemen dodging from tree to tree. Ned, whose shooting was deadly even in the fading light, killed Kennedy while Joe Byrne finished off Scanlon but McIntyre managed to escape on Kennedy's horse. The gang then covered the bodies of the police troopers with blankets, took their weapons and rode out.

Story of an Ambush

Constable McIntyre reached Mansfield to raise the alarm and told a story of a cowardly ambush by the Kelly's and a mass slaughter, which shocked Mansfield and, in time, the whole country. Ned Kelly, Dan Kelly, Steve Hart and Joe Byrne were proclaimed outlaws, to be taken dead or alive. Two hundred police were drafted into the area and skilled native troopers were brought in from Queensland.

“Kennedy kept firing from behind the tree my brother Dan advanced and Kennedy ran. I followed him he stopped behind another tree and fired again. I shot him in the armpit and he dropped his revolver and ran I fired again with the gun as he slewed around to surrender. I did not know that he had dropped his revolver, the bullet passed through the right side of his chest and he could not live or I would have let him go...”
from the Jerilderie Letter

The police manhunt drew a blank. Even with emergency powers to enter premises, search and arrest without warrant, the police could find no trace of the Kelly Gang. Suspected sympathisers were arrested and held for weeks on remand. Public sympathy for the police vanished and resentment set in, even among law-abiding citizens who deplored the shooting of Kennedy and his men.

The sole survivor of the Stringybark shootings, chief Crown witness and chronic perjurer, Constable Thomas McIntyre.
Photo Victoria Police Historical Unit

Then at last the police got help from a friend of Joe Byrne named Aaron Sherritt, who turned informer. Ned Kelly and his gang escaped by a matter of hours. They had friends everywhere, but they had no money. Ned decided that funds must be raised to keep them going and to help sympathisers who needed bail money and pay off farming debts. On December 10, 1878, the Kelly Gang invaded a station property at Faithfull’s Creek near Euroa, 27 miles west of Benalla.

Twenty-two people at the sheep-station were rounded up and locked in a storeroom while the Kelly's' horses rested. Then, leaving Joe Byrne to guard the prisoners, Ned, Dan and Steve drove into Euroa in a commandeered hawker's cart. Euroa then had a population of no more than 300, with an unpretentious National Bank building on the main street. At 4 pm Ned Kelly entered the bank with a drawn gun, and Dan came in from the rear. Ten minutes later they were out on the street again, richer by £2260 in notes and gold. Collecting Joe Byrne at the station homestead, they rode off again on fresh horses after entertaining the prisoners with an impromptu trick riding exhibition. The Gang had just carried off, as their first exploit, the most perfectly planned and executed bank robbery in Australian bushranging history — without violence, leaving no enemies behind them.

An artilleryman, who was stationed in the town soon afterwards, reported, “The people in the bank told me that with the exception of the robbers taking the money, they never offered the slightest insult to anyone. I also visited the Younghusbands station where Joe Byrne was sentry over thirty persons while the others were in the bank, and was told everywhere that the outlaws were undoubtedly police-made criminals”. The Government of Victoria then increased the rewards on the heads of the Kelly Gang to £1000 each, and military guards were posted on all banks in the north-eastern district. Two months later, Ned Kelly and his men crossed the border into NSW and struck again. continue >

Souvenirs The bank was very hot with the sun blazing squarely on the front. The outlaws, meanwhile, raked together an extra sixty pounds plus 30 ounces of gold, 80 rounds of ammunition and a number of deeds and mortgages which they placed in a bag. When they returned to the parlour they asked for a drink, and Scott offered them whisky, which they drank only after he had sampled it.
Max Brown Australian Son
Photo Matt Deller