Former Police Spy is Visited by Wild Wright and Mistaken for Curnow [Sharon Hollingsworth]

In the October 2010 issue of Catholic Life Magazine there is an article called "Kelly Gang Scare and an Armed Robbery at Moe" written by David Synan. It gives details of the Kelly Gang's association with Gippsland and tells about Daniel Kennedy who was allegedly the police spy known as the DSA (Diseased Stock Agent) and his life there after the end of the Kelly era. It details how he was wrongly thought by some to be Thomas Curnow living under an assumed name and how he later had a visit from Wild Wright.

From the article:



Further, they knew he had been involved somehow with the Kelly saga. Accordingly, some concluded that his real name must be Thomas Curnow. This was the Glenrowan teacher who heroically flagged down the special police train from Benalla before it encountered the breach in the railway line that Ned Kelly had organised.....In 1888, just before the Crown [Hotel which Kennedy owned] caught fire, Kennedy had a visit from a second-tier member of the Kelly gang which set tongues wagging. He was Isaiah Wright, known as Wild Wright, both a bare-fist fighter and a loyal Kelly lieutenant. An uncomfortable blast from the past had caught up with Kennedy. Wild Wright was not charged for either accommodation or liquid refreshments. Kennedy did arrange a bare-knuckle fight for Wright with a bushman from Leongatha who handsomely won the encounter.

To read the article in full go to the link below and after the issue loads scroll through to page 21:


http://www.sale.catholic.org.au/catholic-life/view-issues/99-catholic-life-october-2010.html

Regarding him being (wrongly) thought to be Curnow under an assumed name, I remembered the following bit from the September 3, 1911 installment of B.W. Cookson's Kelly Gang From Within newspaper series. Cookson really must have been misled or misinformed to publish the furphy.

From The Kelly Gang From Within:

After the destruction of the gang Mr. Curnow disappeared. He received a liberal share of the reward offered by two Governments for the apprehension of the outlaws. But thenceforward he vanished from human ken. It is presumed - has been presumed for years - that this plucky school teacher is dead. That belief is only partially correct. As Mr. Curnow he has certainly ceased to exist. But the man himself is still alive - or was very recently. Living under another name, old, but still active, Mr. Curnow was until lately teaching a small school in the wilderness of Gippsland. Tall, grave of feature, his long beard now almost white, the man who saved the special train is a very prominent figure in the small community in which he has chosen to immure himself. His secret is not unknown. When on rare occasions he makes a visit to the principal town in the district on some business of compulsion, he is pointed out occasionally by the few who know him as the hero of the Glenrowan fight - the man who risked his life to save the lives of his fellow-men. But his new home is a long way removed from the scene of his memorable exploit. And there is no likelihood of the fact of his identity becoming known involving him in any of the trouble which, rightly or wrongly, he anticipated as the result of what he did on that fateful night. There are none in that region who have any sympathy with the notorious outlaws or their fate. To the people there the whole story of the gang and its exploits and destruction is a memory only. Those who know the old school teacher him for his great exploit - but they respect his wishes by seldom or never alluding to it. And so, in the placid serenity of his autumn of life Mr. Curnow gores on with the work that he has always followed - the instruction of the young. And a wise and capable instructor he has proved himself.