THE LIFE OF NED KELLY (1855-1880)

The eldest son of John Kelly and his wife Ellen (née Quinn), Ned Kelly was born in June 1855 at Beveridge, Victoria. His father, also known as “Red” was born in Tipperary, Ireland, in 1820 and was sentenced in 1841 to seven years' transportation for stealing two pigs. Red Kelly arrived in Van Diemen's Land in 1842. When his sentence expired in 1848 he went to the Port Phillip District and sought work as a labourer at the Quinn residence in Wallan.  It is here that he met Ellen, the eighteen-year-old daughter of James and Mary Quinn and they married on 18 November 1850.

Ned attended school at Avenel until his father died on 27 December 1866. Ned Kelly and his family then moved to a hut at Eleven Mile Creek, about half-way between Greta and Glenrowan in northern Victoria, where James Quinn had taken up a cattle run of 25,000 acres (10,117 ha) of poor country in 1862. Well known in the district, the Quinns and two Lloyd brothers, who had married into the family, were suspected by the police in connection with horse and cattle duffing.  In 1869, Ned Kelly was arrested for the alleged assault on a Chinaman and held for ten days on remand but the charge was dismissed. Next year he was arrested and held in custody for seven weeks as a suspected accomplice of the bushranger, Harry Power, but again the charge was dismissed.

In 1870, Ned Kelly was convicted of summary offences and imprisoned for six months. Soon after release he was sentenced to three years' imprisonment for receiving a mare unaware that it had been stolen. In 1874 he was discharged from prison and returned to Greta and discovered that his mother had married George King, a Californian by whom she had three children.  Ned Kelly worked for two years at a timber yard but in 1876 joined his stepfather in a well orchestrated horse stealing racket.

The Kelly family saw themselves as victims of police persecution, but as they grew up the boys were probably privy to the organized thefts of horses and cattle for which the district was notorious.  Ned's younger brother, James (b.1858), was sentenced to five years' imprisonment for cattle stealing in 1873; released in 1877 he went to Wagga Wagga where he was again sentenced to ten years' imprisonment for stealing horses. He lived respectably after his release from gaol and died in 1946. His mother, always known as Mrs Kelly despite her second marriage, died in 1923. The third brother, Dan Kelly (1861-1880), had been sentenced to three months' imprisonment in 1877 for damaging property, and soon after his release in 1878 a warrant was issued for his arrest for stealing horses.

On 15 April 1878, a police trooper named Alexander Fitzpatrick went to Mrs Kelly's home, allegedly to arrest Dan Kelly. Fitzpatrick, a worthless and unreliable fellow, claimed that Ned Kelly shot him; although Ned was possibly not there, the true facts have never been satisfactorily established. Dan went into hiding with Ned; with scant evidence Mrs Kelly, her son-in-law, William Skillion, and a neighbour, William Williamson, were arrested and charged with aiding and abetting the attempted murder of Fitzpatrick. In October they were tried at the Beechworth Courthouse and convicted. The judge, Sir Redmond Barry, sentenced her to imprisonment for three years and the two males for six. Rewards of £100 were offered for the apprehension of Dan and Ned Kelly, who had gone into hiding in the Wombat Ranges near Mansfield. They were joined by Joe Byrne (b.1857) from Beechworth, and Steve Hart (b.1860), a daring horseman from Wangaratta.

Soon afterwards Sergeant Kennedy and Constables Lonigan, Scanlon and McIntyre set out to capture Dan and Ned Kelly, and on 25 October camped at Stringybark Creek where they were seen by Ned. The next day Kennedy and Scanlon went out on patrol, leaving Lonigan and McIntyre alone at the camp. The Kelly gang surprised the camp and when Lonigan drew his revolver Ned Kelly shot him dead while McIntyre surrendered. When Kennedy and Scanlon returned, they did not surrender when called on, and in a short but heated exchange of shots, Ned Kelly killed Scanlon and mortally wounded Kennedy. Ned later shot him in the heart, claiming it was an act of mercy. McIntyre managed to flee and returned to Mansfield to report the killings.

On 15 November the Victorian government issued a proclamation of outlawry and offered rewards of £500 for each of the four gang members, alive or dead. Police were mobilized, however, their methods of pursuit and of obtaining information were crude and inept. On 9 December the Kelly gang took possession of a sheep station at Faithfull's Creek, about four miles (6.4 km) out of Euroa, locking up twenty-two persons in a store-room. While Joe Byrne guarded the captives, the other three went to Euroa where they held up the National Bank, taking £2000 in notes and gold. This crime resulted in a doubling of the reward, but on Saturday, 8 February 1879, the gang struck again, this time at Jerilderie in NSW, a town about thirty miles (48 km) north of the Murray River. They locked up two policemen and took possession of the police station, remaining there until Monday morning. Wearing police uniforms, they held up the Bank of New South Wales for £2141 in notes and coin, and rounded up sixty persons in the Royal Hotel next door. Ned had given a written statement of over 8000 words to a bank-teller. What became of the original and of an earlier statement which Kelly sent to Donald Cameron, M.L.A. (1877-1880) is not known but, long after Kelly's death, copies made by a clerk in the Crown Law department became available. Known as the 'Cameron letter' and the 'Jerilderie letter', they are Kelly's explanation and justification of his conduct.

The reward for the outlaws was increased to £2000 each and in an attempt to flush them from the high ranges, native trackers were brought from Queensland.  Aaron Sherritt, a friend of Joe Byrne's, became an agent for the police, and on Saturday, 27 June 1880, was shot dead by Byrne in his own doorway near Beechworth, while four cowardly constables assigned to guard Sherritt hid under a bed in the adjoining bedroom. Joe Byrne and Dan Kelly then joined Ned and Steve at Glenrowan, where they took possession of the hotel run by Mrs Ann Jones and detained about sixty people. The outlaws foresaw that a special train would be sent from Melbourne on Sunday night in response to the murder of Aaron Sherritt, and would arrive at Glenrowan early on Monday, 29 June.  The Kelly gang compelled two railway workers to tear up a section of railway track on a sharp bend with the intent to derail the speeding train. The scheme came to nothing because a crippled schoolmaster, Thomas Curnow, whom Ned Kelly had allowed to leave the hotel with his wife, child and sister, gave warning to the train crew.  The special police train stopped prior to the impending doom and all persons were able to disembark without incident.

All outlaws were equipped with armour made from stolen plough mould-boards consisting of a cylindrical headpiece, breast and back plates and apron weighing about 90 lbs (41 kg). Little sleep and too much alcohol affected their judgement and, although the armour limited their movements and use of firearms, it gave them a false sense of invulnerability.

Under Superintendent Hare, the police surrounded the hotel and the shooting began. Hare was shot in the hand and immediately retreated to the comfort and safety of the station while Ned was wounded in the foot, hand and arm. Dan Kelly, Joe Byrne and Steve Hart took refuge in the hotel while Ned Kelly went into the bush to warn sympathizers not to advance. The police continued to fire; Byrne was shot in the thigh as he stood at the hotel bar, and bled to death. About 5 a.m. Ned Kelly returned, still clad in armour, looking huge and grotesque in the early mist. He was eventually brought down by bullet wounds in the legs.  Close to death, Ned Kelly was transferred to the Glenrowan railway station where he was tended to by Dr. John Nicholson, who stole Ned’s green sash, and Father Matthew Gibney.

Most of the captives in the hotel had succeeded in leaving the building, the last of them emerging about 10 a.m. An old man named Martin Cherry was in a detached kitchen, fatally wounded by a police bullet; young John Jones, son of the hotel-keeper, was similarly shot in the abdomen and died in hospital. With Ned Kelly captured and Joe Byrne dead, only Dan and Steve were not accounted for, but the police continued to fire sporadically until 3 p.m., when a policeman set the building on fire. Father Gibney went into the burning building to administer the last rites and reported three dead bodies were inside. One, Joe's, was brought out by police. The other two were those of Dan and Steve, who had apparently taken poison and were burned beyond recognition.

On 28-29 October 1880 at Melbourne, Ned Kelly was tried for the murder of Constable Thomas Lonigan at Stringybark Creek. He was found guilty and the judge, Redmond Barry, sentenced him to death.

Despite strong agitation for a reprieve, Ned Kelly was hanged at the Melbourne Gaol on 11 November. He met his end without fear. His last words were 'Ah well, I suppose it has come to this', and by another version, 'Such is life'.