Ned Kelly

Australia’s most famous bushranger was Ned Kelly.

Edward ‘Ned’ Kelly was the son of an Irish convict. Like Frank Gardiner he was first arrested for horse stealing. Ned and his brother Dan later formed a gang of bushrangers and robbed banks. In 1878 Ned and his gang shot dead three policemen that were trying to arrest them.

The Kelly Gang then took over the town of Jerilderie, New South Wales. Ned dictated a famous letter, telling his side of the story. He claimed he was driven to life as an outlaw by the police’s hounding of his family.

I have been wronged and my mother and four or five men lagged innocent and is my brothers and sisters and my mother not to be pitied also who has no alternative only to put up with the brutal and cowardly conduct of a parcel of big ugly fat-necked wombat headed big bellied magpie legged narrow hipped splaw-footed sons of Irish Bailiffs or English landlords which is better known as Officers of Justice or Victorian Police...

Ned Kelly, Jerilderie Letter, 1879

The Kelly Gang’s luck finally ran out on 27 June 1880. They were holed up in the Glenrowan Inn, Victoria, with the townsfolk as hostages. Ned hoped to derail a police train, tearing up the tracks, but a local schoolmaster managed to warn the police.

The police had the Kelly Gang pinned down. At first light, in the midst of a gunfight, Ned Kelly stepped out of the Glenrowan Inn wearing a roughly made metal helmet and suit of armour. He raised two guns and shot at the police. Bullets bounced off Ned’s armour but the police managed to shoot him in the legs.

As Ned Kelly fell, the Glenrowan Inn burst into flames. The other members of the Kelly Gang and several of the hostages died in the shoot-out and the fire. Ned was captured alive. He stood trial in Melbourne and was sentenced to death. Ned Kelly was hanged on 11 November 1880. He was 25 years old. It is said that his last words were, ‘Ah well, I suppose it had to come to this’ or ‘Such is life’.

Ned Kelly has become an Australia folk hero. He was a murderer and a thief but his self-proclaimed stand against the corrupt authorities and his iconic Glenrowan armour have made him world famous.