Kelly Gang souvenirs rounded up
Geraldine O'Brien
Heritage Writer
7 June 2003
Sydney Morning Herald
source: smh.com.au

Despite numerous films, histories and novels, the myth of the Kelly Gang still has steam, with the trade in memorabilia continuing unabated, often illegally, according to the guardians of Australia's archives. In NSW, State Records has just retrieved three telegrams and a letter relating to the hunt for the Kelly gang and the murder of Aaron Sherritt. They had been offered for auction and had a catalogue value of between $5000 and $10,000.

Alan Ventress of State Records said it had paid $3600 to secure the documents. "Probably on the open market the value would have been around $10,000 but these are government documents which cannot be sold on the open market. We give some compensation out of good will. But the message we want to get over is that no matter what jurisdiction they appear in, these documents are not for sale; they are government records and the trade in them is illegal."

All four items "clearly have been hanging on someone's wall", he said. They show police forces in NSW and Victoria reacting with panic to the gang's depredations The alarm was sufficient enough to raise the reward for their capture to the equivalent of $2 million in today's money, a sum raised by both governments and "certain banks operating in the colony".

"Kelly's gang supposed to have crossed Murrumbidgee riding four bay horses leading two pack horses," reads one telegram. "Have informed all stations north. Another, from Beechworth police dated June 27, 1880, reports that the "watch party stuck up by Kelly gang at six o'clock Saturday night. Aaron [Sherritt] shot dead in the hut he occupied by Joe Byrne..."

Mr Ventress said the richest collection of Kelly material was held in Victoria's Public Record Office and was available on its website. "We've got the NSW side of the story - the correspondence between the colonial secretaries of NSW and Victoria and the police as the gang went backwards and forwards across the border." He added: "Anything to do with Kelly is a constant source of fascination... and I think people of the time realised it would become significant, which is why so many of them souvenired documents like these, which had probably been held in local police stations."