THE BOSS IS COMING!

Ellen Kelly

Ellen Kelly’s eventual release from prison was celebrated by this photograph taken at the Kelly homestead in early 1881.

At the age of 93, Ellen Kelly died on 27 March 1923. She had outlived seven of her twelve children and reared three grandchildren after their mother died, including Frederick Foster who was killed in France during World War One. In 1841, Ellen and her six brothers and sisters arrived in Australia  from County Antrim, Ireland. Her father, James Quinn, was a free settler who rented land for dairying in Brunswick upon their arrival. The family then moved up the Hume Highway to Broadmeadows. In the early 1850's they settled in Wallan but trouble with the law soon followed. In 1864 James Quinn decided to move his family once more, this time to Glenmore in the King Valley.

In 1875 the Quinns sold their lease and selected land near Greta. At the same time the police presence in Greta increased dramatically. Without denying the clan caused trouble, you would be hard pressed to justify such an increase in police numbers. They where involved in stock theft, not rape and murder. The Kelly's became part of the clan on November 18, 1850 when Ellen and John “Red” Kelly eloped. They were married at St Francis' Church, in Melbourne.

Kate Kelly played a lesser role in the Kelly saga than her older sister Maggie. At age fourteen she became the centre of Constable Fitzpatrick’s infatuation which led to the fateful confrontation.
Photo Max Brown

The Kelly’s settled at Beveridge,  near Wallan, and began raising a family. Jim Kelly, the second eldest son would comfort his mother through to her death. By 1860 the family had moved to Avenel, renting forty acres on the banks of the Hughes Creek. Dan was born here a year later and at the age of five he was listed as a suspected horse thief in the Police Gazette. Another example of police obsession. 1865 saw Red Kelly sentenced to six months gaol for the possession of a cow hide. By 1866 he was dead, having suffered from dropsy before he had even begun his final sentence. So at the age of twelve Ned found himself man of the house.

Six months later the Kelly family moved again, this time to an eighty eight acre selection near Greta. Ellen's first court appearance happened not long after, when she was fined two pounds for abusing a neighbour. The land on the selection was of poor quality, however the family hut was used as a stopping off place for the Quinn clan. Police interest in the extended family grew, with the young Kelly boys being bought up on numerous stock charges. In one instance, twelve year old Ned and ten year old Dan were in gaol for two days on horse stealing charges before the case was dismissed. Ellen had three charges dismissed by the magistrate over the following year including selling sly grog and  furious riding. Her son Jim was not so lucky, being sentenced at the age of fourteen, to five years gaol for stealing four cows.

It was high summer, 19 February, and Ned barely returned from Pentridge when his mother and George King were married in Benalla in the private home of the Rev. William Gould according to the rites of the Primitive Methodists. The witnesses were Ned himself and Margaret’s husband Bill. King no doubt - like all other new Australians before or since - had come to a new country because something had gone wrong in the old. He was not much older than Ned himself.
Max Brown Australian Son
Photo Leigh Olver

On February 19, 1874 Ellen married a Californian named George King. She had three children by him, including baby Alice whom she took to gaol after the Fitzpatrick incident, before Mr King disappeared in 1878. April of the same year saw a warrant issued for the arrest of Dan on suspicion of horse stealing. This lead to the Fitzpatrick affair, the turning point in the Kelly saga. When the year came to a close Ellen King, mother of twelve, was in gaol for attempted murder, three police were dead and Ned and Dan were outlaws.

“I mind, you'll die like a Kelly, son”
Ellen to Ned, Melbourne Gaol

By the time she was finally released in 1881 the uprising had come and gone. The police and citizens of Victoria's North East would never be the same again. As for Ellen she would never to return the gaol. Instead she headed back to her selection where she finally qualified for ownership in 1893. When she died she was a woman of dignity, admired and respected by the people around her. Publicly she refused to discuss her sons, however amongst friends she was heard to say she was proud of them. She thought Dan the better general yet she likened Ned to Napoleon.

John "Red" Kelly

John Kelly was baptised on 20th February 1820, in Moyglass Church in the county of Tipperary, Ireland. His parents, Thomas Kelly and Mary Cody, lived near the town of Clonbrogan, which is about one mile west from Moyglass, and raised a family of five boys and two girls on less than half an acre. While six of the children would make the journey to Australia, it was the eldest son John who made the first crossing thanks to sentence of seven years transportation. Kelly had worked as a ranger on Lord Ormonde's Killarney estate until transported for stealing two pigs. The pig, known variously as His Lordship (because the landlord was English), or Georgie (after George IV), was bought at market as a piglet, then fattened and sold and therefore commonly called 'the gentleman who pays the rent'. Eight out of every ten Irish convicts were transported for larceny of an animal.

Kelly had made the voyage to the Derwent in the barque Prince Regent and done time with the bushranger William Westwood, hanged with ten other convicts on Norfolk Island for organising a mutiny. Like Red himself, Westwood had been a harmless short-sentence man before absconding from a sheep run south of Sydney. According to tradition Red was run-of-the-mill Irish, but generous to a fault. He could sign his name, but it is doubtful if he could write much - hardly surprising since whatever common schools Ireland had were conducted clandestinely under hedgerows.
Max Brown Australian Son

Red Kelly, as he was called for his reddish hair, had not long completed his seven year sentence across the strait in Tasmania. Around 1849, Ellen Quinn’s father James came to know John Kelly, a fellow countryman post-splitting on Merri Creek. In 1850 he met Ellen Quinn, and they were married on November 18, that same year in St. Francis’s Church, Melbourne. For the next fifteen years Red made a hard living from horse dealing, gold mining and dairy farming. Over this period of time Red was to father eight children – including Ned. In 1865 he was charged with stealing a calf from a Mr. Morgan. While the charge of cattle stealing was dismissed, the charge of "unlawful possession of a hide" was upheld and he was fined £25 or 6 months in gaol. Unable to pay the fine Red spent many long months locked away.

Released in an unhealthy state, by November 1866 Red’s constitution had seriously deteriorated — helped along by his penchant for the bottle. At the age of 46, John Kelly finally succumbed to the effects of dropsy on 27th December 1866. His death was reported and signed by his son Edward “Ned” Kelly who, while not yet 12 years of age, was to take over as the man of the house. Red was buried in Avenel Cemetery, Victoria, on 29th December 1866.

Harry Power

Middle aged when he escaped from Pentridge Prison, Harry Power launched an impressive fifteen month bushranging career.
Photo Victoria Police Historical Unit

Harry Power was born Henry Johnson at Waterford, Ireland in 1819. He and his family migrated to England in the 1830's where he worked as a piecer in the Woolen Mills at Ashton, Lancashire. He was sentenced to seven years transportation for stealing a pair of shoes in 1840. He arrived in Tasmania during May 1842. By 1847 Henry Johnson received a ticket-of-leave so he travelled to the mainland where he worked as a horse dealer in Geelong and Maryborough.

In 1855, he received a thirteen year sentence for horse stealing and shooting a police trooper. During his stint Power served time in various prisons including some time aboard the prison hulk 'Success' anchored off Williamstown in Hobson's Bay. Released in 1862 and now under the name of Harry Power, he was posted 'illegally at large' after ignoring his conditions of release. Subsequently a reward was placed on his head. Harry moved to the North East of Victoria where, in 1864,  he was arrested for horse stealing and sentenced at Beechworth Courthouse to seven years imprisonment at Pentridge Prison in Coburg.

In 1869, only a few months before he was released, Power escaped by hiding in a hole in a new section of prison wall. He then returned to North East Victoria where he was responsible for a spate of armed robberies of travellers, coaches and horses. His territory ranged from Kyneton to Bairnsdale, across the Divide and deep into Gippsland and, and up to southern NSW. He once held up the Mansfield-Jamieson coach twice in a week. It was here that Harry Power became known as the 'Gentleman Bushranger' until he was finally caught in the middle of 1870. For the charge of three armed robberies he was sentenced to a fifteen years imprisonment with hard labour to be served at Pentridge, although he probably committed more than ninety offences while at large.

“I will teach you things you would pay guineas to learn! Give attention to me, Ned, and I will reveal to you every secret of me daring trade”
Power to young Ned The Last Outlaw

Harry Power survived his prison term, being released in 1885, an old and sick man. For a period afterwards he acted as a tour guide aboard the hulk 'Success' under the title “The last of the Bushrangers”. Harry Power was made famous by being credited with tutoring a young Ned Kelly in the ways of bushranging during 1870. It was a brief affair, one where Ned made only five pounds and which nearly cost him his life. Ned was also arrested as Harry's accomplice in May 1870, however, the charge was dismissed.

Superintendent Nicolson grapples with a sleepy Harry Power during a dawn capture in his mountain hideout, while Superintendent Hare and Sergeant Montfort move in.

During 1891 Power made his last trip to the North East where it was reported he slipped and drowned whilst fishing in the Murray River near Swan Hill. He survived his famous apprentice by eleven years. Mrs Kelly may have been half right when she called him a “brown paper bushranger” but his death signified the end to the “Golden Days of Bushranging” for Victoria's North East.

Jim Kelly

Jim Kelly, four years Ned’s junior, was serving a three year sentence for horse stealing when his brothers were outlawed and was not released until January 1880. Ian Jones attributes the gaol term to Jim’s longevity.
Photo Max Brown

Jim first came to the attention of the constabulary when Constable Hall's successor, Constable Flood, targeted the then twelve-year-old, who was working for a hawker, and his younger brother Dan, still at Common School in Greta. The boys were caught illegally using the hawker's horse and locked up for two days. In February 1873, John Lloyd - the same who had put Harry Power away - was convicted of maliciously killing a horse. In an attempt to raise money for his defence, Tom Lloyd got Jim Kelly, aged 14, and a 16 year old named Williams to sell some stray cows and both were gaoled for five years.

“It is not over yet”
Jim addressing the Bourke Street crowd, November 1880

That the injustice done to Jim Kelly would not be repeated became evident when Dan - after a trip into Benalla with his teenage mates - was arrested for stealing a saddle and bridle. This time Ned hired a lawyer, and he was acquitted with the help of a receipt and his mates' witness. Already eighteen and as tall as Ned himself, Jim Kelly came out of Beechworth, having been given a year's remission for good behaviour. He had the good fortune to leave the district with some of his mates - their aim to strike a blow with the blade in the Riverina sheds, some of which had forty or fifty stands. But by June 1877 was arrested and convicted of horse theft and was not released until late 1879.

Tom Lloyd

Tom Lloyd, cousin of Ned and Dan, became a loyal and active supporter of the Gang.
Photo Victoria Police Historical Unit

Jack Lloyd's son, Tom Junior, was possibly closer to Ned than any of the other members of the gang. Being Ned's first cousin, Tom was a staunch supporter, often referred to as the fifth member of the Kelly Gang. He is recognised today as an important piece of the Kelly puzzle. Tom was friend, adviser, strategist, and tactician to the Gang.

During the Kelly uprising he was a formidable leader of the sympathisers which lead to his arrest. It has been said that in other circumstances he could have been Ned Kelly. Tom and Wild were mainstays of the Kelly Gang but where Isaiah "Wild" Wright was arrogant, Lloyd was far more close-chested.

“Don't ride into this mess”
Ned to Tom The Last Outlaw

The final hours of the Glenrowan battle saw Tom comforting Ned when he could have escaped with Lloyd's help, but Kelly refused. When Tom goes to visit Ned in prison prior to his hanging, Kelly tells him where to find a planted saddle. It highlights the bond these two bushmen shared. In later life, Tom became a respected farmer and lived into his seventies. When Tom passed away he was buried at the Greta Cemetery.