A hundred and thirty years after his death at the age of twenty-five, Ned Kelly’s story still haunts the imagination of Australians. In his short life he had already become a legend, and that legend is still powerful today. In his own time he divided opinion. Today, people still argue about him. As Jamie asks himself, was Ned Kelly a hero or a villain? Was he a boy who had a hard time and grew into a man hard done by, sent mad, as Ned himself said, by bad treatment? Or was he a born troublemaker and law-breaker who chose to take the wrong path? Whatever side people come down on—and many, maybe most, people can’t make up their mind but, like Jamie, think that he was made up of both ‘dark and bright’—everyone agrees that he was no common criminal, but an extraordinary and complex figure.
Born in December 1854 in Beveridge, Victoria, Edward (or Ned as everyone called him) was the eldest son of Irish-born John ‘Red’ Kelly and Ellen Quinn. ‘Red’ Kelly (so called because of the colour of his hair) had originally come to Australia as a convict. In 1865, when he was not quite eleven, Ned saved a younger boy, Richard Shelton, from drowning. As a reward for his bravery, Ned was given a beautiful green silk sash with gold fringes by the little boy’s grateful parents. It was a gift he was immensely proud of, kept all his life, and was wearing when he was shot down at Glenrowan.
In December 1866, ‘Red’ Kelly died and the family was left fatherless. It was a hard blow for the family. Thanks to a school inspector’s report, it’s known Ned did well in reading and writing, and not too badly in arithmetic, but failed grammar and geography! But now he had to leave school and start to earn money. Kids in those days had to start work very young if there wasn’t much money around. Only twelve, Ned worked hard on the family farm and also got work as a land-clearer and wood-splitter. But he was also influenced by his mother’s brothers and brothers-in-law, the wild Quinns and Lloyds, who were involved in some very dodgy things, such as horse- and cattle-stealing.
When Ned was fourteen, he was befriended by the bushranger Harry Power, who had escaped from prison. Maybe Ned was tired of the hard work he was doing; maybe he wanted excitement and quick money. Whatever the reason, the following year he took part in a ‘stick-up’ with Harry Power. Ned was caught and tried, but acquitted. Harry Power was captured and sent to prison, while Ned got involved in a brawl and was gaoled for three months. When he got out he went back to his bad old ways, encouraged by his rascally new stepfather, George King, and got involved in horse-stealing. Caught, he was sentenced to three years in gaol.
It is during this time that he may have first read the book that is believed to have been his favourite: the exciting adventure story Lorna Doone, by RD Blackmore, published in 1869. It’s told in the voice of young boy called John Ridd whose father is killed by wicked outlaws called the Doones and who for a time works for a ‘good’ highwayman called Tom Faggus. Perhaps Ned loved the book because he identified with its hero, as a fatherless boy who worked with a highway robber! And historians have suggested it’s possible he may have got the idea for the armour he and his friends wore at Glenrowan from the description of the outlaw Doones coming down the mountain with ‘iron plates on breast and head’.
Ned was released from prison six months early for good behaviour. He went back home and for quite a while tried to go straight. He got a job in a sawmill and later worked as a mason. People who employed him said he was a good worker. But he soon got into bad company again and began to work in a big horse-stealing ring that included Joe Byrne, which is probably when they met. Ned’s younger brother Dan also became involved, as did Aaron Sherritt, Joe’s childhood friend, and several others. It was at this time that Ned and Joe used the aliases of ‘Thompson’ and ‘Cook’ which I have used in this book.
The police soon believed that Ned and Dan Kelly were involved in the horse-stealing. On the fateful night of April 15, 1878, Constable Alexander Fitzpatrick from Benalla police station, who knew the Kellys well and was even a sort of friend, went alone to the Kelly homestead at Greta in connection with arrest warrants issued for the two brothers. No-one is quite sure what happened that night. Fitzpatrick claimed Ned Kelly had drawn a gun on him and shot him in the wrist, but Ned always said Fitzpatrick had hurt his wrist on the latch while hurrying to get out of the door after being sent packing by the clan. The Kellys also claimed that the constable was drunk, that he’d ‘got fresh’ with Kate Kelly and that Ned wasn’t even there when it happened. Whatever the truth—and it might lie somewhere between the two versions—Fitzpatrick (who by the way was later dismissed from the police for bad behaviour)—went back to the station and claimed Ned Kelly had tried to kill him and that he had been attacked by Ned’s mother and brother-in-law, and a friend of theirs. The dramatic result can probably be said to have started all the troubles that came later. Ned’s mother, brother-in-law and friend were arrested, but Ned and Dan had made themselves scarce, escaping into the bush where they worked as gold prospectors. At about this time, Steve Hart joined them, and Joe was soon added to the party.
After Mrs Kelly and the others were sentenced, the hunt for the Kelly boys began in earnest. A police party was put together at Greta and at Mansfield. The four-man party from Mansfield consisted of Sergeant Michael Kennedy, Mounted Constable Michael Scanlon, Mounted Constable Thomas Lonigan, and Constable Thomas McIntyre. They were all excellent bushmen and crack shots and were heavily armed when they went into the forest at Stringybark Creek on October 25, 1879. The next day Ned and his friends came across them unexpectedly and bailed up MacIntyre and Lonigan. McIntyre surrendered at once, but Lonigan jumped behind a log and took cover. When he raised his head to fire, he was shot dead. The two other policemen, Scanlon and Kennedy, returned to the camp later that day and were bailed up, but refused to surrender. Scanlon was shot dead almost at once, but Kennedy managed to get off his horse and fight bravely for a while. Eventually, however, he was killed as well.
Meanwhile, McIntyre had escaped on Kennedy’s horse. Fearing the gang would be after him, he ditched the horse and hid for the rest of the night in a wombat hole before staggering into Mansfield to raise the alarm. His first statement to the police seemed to back up Ned’s often-repeated claim that the policemen had been shot in self-defence during a gunfight, but later he changed his testimony, saying the men had been shot in cold blood. It was this version which was given at Ned Kelly’s trial.
After the deaths of the three policemen, Ned and Dan Kelly (who McIntyre knew by sight) were outlawed, along with two other men he had not recognised (but who turned out to be Joe Byrne and Steve Hart). People were outraged and horrified by what the bushrangers had done, and a big reward was offered for the Kelly gang’s capture. On the run, Ned Kelly organised the Euroa bank raid and then the Jerilderie bank raid. Because of their boldness, and the fact they had not fired a shot or hurt anyone at all during the raids, but behaved well, public opinion changed and they started to be seen as legends. At Jerilderie, Ned Kelly had dictated a letter to Joe Byrne which tried to tell the story of what had happened. He wrote several such documents throughout his life, trying to make people understand the tragic happenings at Stringybark Creek from his point of view. He wanted it to be published, but it never was in his lifetime, though some newspapers told their readers about it. You can read it now in several books and also online. It’s known as the Jerilderie Letter.
Though after the bank raids the reward for the gang’s capture was immediately increased to £8,000 (several million dollars in today’s money), no-one ever tried to turn them in. For nearly two years—the timeframe of this book—the outlaws were hunted high and low over the whole of north-east Victoria, but always managed to stay one step ahead. The police employed dozens of informers and sent out many search parties, but they did not handle it well at all and made many mistakes. They also harassed and persecuted the Kelly family and supporters as well as a good many other people; at one stage you could be arrested on the spot and flung into gaol without charge just for having perhaps once met Ned Kelly and his friends.
It was not until the gang burst out of hiding in late June 1880, at Glenrowan, that anyone in authority had any idea where they were.
Here’s an irony to end this account: the year after the siege at Glenrowan and Ned Kelly’s trial (which many people today believe to have been less than fair) there was a Royal Commission set up into the conduct of the police before, during and after the ‘Kelly Outbreak’. As a result of this very thorough enquiry, many members of the police were reprimanded, sacked or demoted, including some very high-up people.
Though this book is a work of fiction, featuring fictional characters as well as real people, I have used, where possible, real quotes from people who knew Ned and his friends, such as some of the remarks of James Ingram, the bookseller in Beechworth, whose actual descriptions of Ned and Joe’s behaviour are to be found in JJ Kenneally’s fascinating book, The Complete Inner History of the Kelly Gang and Their Pursuers, which was written in the 1920s, when some of the Kelly family, such as Jim Kelly, Ned’s brother, were still alive (there is a letter from him to the author in the book). I have also used many of Ned’s own writings, including the Jerilderie Letter and other letters he dictated from prison, as well as actual trial documents, newspaper reports and so on. The song ‘The Ballad of the Kelly Gang’, which is real, is thought to have been written by Joe Byrne, who was something of a poet and wrote several other songs of this sort.
As well as JJ Kenneally’s book, I used the following excellent books as sources: Ian Jones’s Ned Kelly—A Short Life, The Ned Kelly Encyclopaedia by Justin Corfield, Ned Kelly by John Molony, and Ned Kelly—The Authentic Illustrated History by Keith McMenomy.
As to the photograph of the Kelly gang which my fictional young photographers Ellen and Jamie Ross take — it actually exists. At least, it exists as a postcard in the collection of the National Library of Australia, printed from an original photograph which has since been lost. The photo is undocumented and no-one knows who took it, where, or when. There were many travelling photographers going around the countryside in those days, and it was likely taken by one of them. The photographer must have been in a hurry, because in the picture you can actually see a tripod and negative box leaning against a tree!
When I saw it for the first time as a reproduction in Beechworth many years ago, I was immediately fascinated, for if it is authentic—and it is believed that’s likely—it is the only picture in existence of at least part of the gang while they were on the run. Though Ned and Dan Kelly are definitely thought to be in the picture, the third figure has been identified variously as Steve Hart or as Isaiah ‘Wild’ Wright, a close friend of the gang.
I bought a copy of the postcard and stuck it on a wall, thinking one day I must do something about it. And so here we are …