...
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 ...
From Ned Kelly's 'Jerilderie
Letter', February, 1979 (read the letter)
June 28, 1880
| Dressed in home-made armour and with revolver blazing, Australian bushranger Ned
Kelly burst out of the Glenrowan Inn, which was surrounded by
about 30 State
troopers.
The most wanted outlaws the country has ever known, the four-member
Kelly Gang, had £8,000 on their heads, at a time when a labouring man's wages
were about 15 shillings a week. Their crime, among many others, was the murder of three policemen at Stringybark
Creek.
At first the dumbfounded police could not
understand why their bullets did not stop him. Even in the dawn light, they
could see the helmet he was wearing, but when they aimed at his torso, nothing happened. Then they realised
that under his long overcoat must be more armour, so they began firing at his
legs. It wasn't long before he was brought down in a hail of bullets.
Ned was born in Beveridge, Victoria just north
of Melbourne, probably in December, 1854. As a boy he attended school
and risked his life to save another boy who was drowning. As a reward he was
given a sash, which he would wear under his armour during his final showdown
with police ...
Over sixty thousand Victorians
signed a petition against Kelly's sentencing, and an inquiry was held in
which all the police
officers involved in Ned's exploits were either made redundant or demoted.
More
Glenrowan Siege events, 1880
Sunday, June 27
Glenrowan, Victoria, Australia: The day after the June 26 shooting of gang
associate-turned-informer, Aaron Sherritt,
Ned and Steve Hart hold up the Jones family's small Glenrowan Inn, expecting the police to come for them. They take a large number of
hostages; by day's end they are holding 60 men, women and children. [Not for the
first time: at Jerilderie
the gang had taken 60 hostages as well.] They cut the telegraph lines and force railway workers to tear up rails, so they can ambush the troopers at the derailment or at least engage them in a
showdown and perhaps negotiate the release from prison of the Kellys’ mother, Ellen. Joe Byrne and Ned's brother Dan Kelly arrive at Glenrowan from Beechworth.
Sunday evening, police from Melbourne (capital of the State of Victoria) travel
overnight by train to Glenrowan.
In the Inn after a few drinks, Ned foolishly not only divulges his train
derailment plan to the hostages but sets some of them free. Thomas Curnow, the
local schoolmaster is one of them, and in the midwinter pre- dawn, despite making himself a
target for the bushrangers, he bravely stands on the railway line with a lit
candle shining through a red scarf, and flags down the train. The Kelly Gang
hears the train whistle but no derailment, so they quickly don their suits of armour, which they had
hammered out of stolen ploughshares earlier that year, in a hideout in the Greta
Swamps. Each suit consists of a front piece, a back piece and an apron to
protect the groin, and weighs about 80 pounds. Only Ned has head protection as
he is the only one strong enough to carry the extra 15 pounds of weight of the
now-famous helmet.
Constable Bracken, who has
been at home sick in bed, directs the newly arrived reinforcements to the Glenrowan Inn.
A large crowd
begins to assemble near the Inn for the expected showdown: commercial
illustrators and photographers, so-called black
trackers (indigenous men with a skill at tracking in the bush) and about 500
members of the public. About 30 troopers storm the hotel and a gunfight begins.
Monday, June 28
Before dawn, Dan, Byrne and Hart are in the hotel. A bullet strikes Dan Byrne, a femoral artery is cut and he dies of blood loss. Ned is shot and badly injured but escapes the inn, collapsing in the bush nearby due to loss of blood.
At about 5 am, weak and in pain,
Ned braves the overwhelming police numbers and returns to the inn to try to rescue, or at
least die with, his brother and Dan Hart. As Ned approaches the inn armed only
with a revolver, he attacks the constabulary. A shootout between lone Ned and a line of police ensues.
Bullets rain on the already injured outlaw, at first bouncing off his armour,
until the police aim for his legs. Fallen, he yells "I am done, I am
done!" and howls like an animal as the police rush him. Ned is easily captured. [At time of writing, reports of the number of bullets that struck Ned Kelly range from six to 28, and his wounds are variously described as being in the legs alone, in the arms and legs, or in the arms, legs and groin.] In a critical condition, Ned is held in custody.
At about 10 am, Dan Kelly and Steve Hart inside the inn release the last of the hostages. A priest takes Ned's confession; doctors treat his injuries. Doctor Nicholson purloins Ned's
sash lucky charm. [It is now in the care of the Benalla District Historical
Society.]
Dan Kelly and Steve Hart are shot and lie dead inside the inn.
[Today it is believed that they took their own lives by ingesting poison.]
The police continue firing for much of the day. At about 3pm, unaware of these deaths, police set fire to the building. Catholic priest, Dean Gibney, bravely enters the burning hotel in an attempt to negotiate a surrender. He returns and reports three dead bodies fitting the descriptions of Joe, Dan and Steve. Joe Byrnes's body is recovered before the flames take hold.
Ned is transported to Benalla, held in the lock-up, then taken by train to Melbourne. Joe Byrne's body is shown off at Benalla as a curiosity.
The bodies of Steve Hart and Dan Kelly, badly burned, are later later given to the Kelly and Hart families and buried in Greta cemetery. No autopsies were performed.
On October
29, Ned Kelly is sentenced
to death by Sir Redmond
Barry and hanged in Melbourne on November 11, 1880 (qv).
More details And more
Source
Tuesday,
June 29
The body of Kelly Gang member Joe Byrne, opium addict and something of a poet, was
propped up against the door of the Benalla lock-up for photographer Arthur
Burman. Ned was transferred from the Benalla lock-up to Melbourne Gaol.
At left of the image, eminent Australian
artist Julian Ashton has his back to the scene, but the previous night, by
candlelight, he had sketched Byrne's body onto a wooden block, to be engraved
for the Illustrated Australian News.
Ned in film 
One of the world's first feature length films was The Story of
the Kelly Gang released in 1906, with a then-unprecedented
running time of 70 minutes, of which all that remain are a few minutes of film,
a synopsis and a program. Mick Jagger starred in a
poorly reviewed 1970
film, Ned Kelly,
directed by Tony
Richardson.
In 2003, Ned Kelly, a $30 million
budget movie about
the outlaw's life was released. Directed by Gregor
Jordan, it starred Heath Ledger (as Kelly), Orlando Bloom,
Geoffrey
Rush, and Naomi
Watts.
More than 100 books have now been published on the
Kelly tale, six musicals, six films, one opera, one ballet and one French strip
cartoon.
