(Part 3) A Review of Ian MacFarlane's 'The Kelly Gang Unmasked' [Brian Stevenson]

 This is part three of a three part review by Brian Stevenson of Ian MacFarlane's 'The Kelly Gang Unmasked.' Part one can be read at

http://elevenmilecreek.blogspot.com/2013/01/part-1-review-of-ian-macfarlanes-kelly.html

Part two can be read at

http://elevenmilecreek.blogspot.com/2013/02/part-2-review-of-ian-macfarlanes-kelly.html


To all those who have read and commented on my previous posts on this book, I thank you all. To closely study an alternative viewpoint on Ned Kelly has been an interesting and mentally stimulating exercise. While there are parts of it that provide many new insights and ideas, it should not be assumed that I am automatically in accord with everything in Mr MacFarlane’s book.



True, both he and I have mentally consigned the Republic of North-eastern Victoria to the Extremely Unlikely Basket, and I took the liberty of agreeing with and enlarging upon his thoughts in the last post. But it should be recalled that in the blog post before that I was not totally in praise of the volume. I noted that the book promised more than it delivered, I was extremely critical of MacFarlane’s brief mention of Brooke Smith and very, very skeptical of his attempts to get Alexander Fitzpatrick off the hook. On the other hand, I was pretty much in accord with his favourable treatment of McIntyre and conceded that Ward might not have been as repugnant a character as previously supposed.



With this post, I have decided to look at the areas in this work where I felt that there were misconceptions, omissions and errors. I stress that this does not constitute a condemnation of the book in toto, but rather an examination of where it could have been lot better. I cover a lot of different issues, and it’s convenient to put them all in the one post. I hope that Mr MacFarlane does read this at some stage, takes the comments on board, and considers them if and when a new edition is published. We all know that Ned sells books. Jones’s work has gone through three editions, Molony’s two and Kenneally’s through nine (I think), so this work may be reincarnated at some stage. If so, it is to be hoped that some of the rectification work needed is carried out.



We will never know for the full story of the betrayal of Harry Power, but MacFarlane seems positive that it was Ned who was the betrayer. The case that MacFarlane makes (pages 36-37) for Ned being one of the betrayers has some weight, but it’s not, as he seems to think, conclusive. In an account published long after Kelly and the other likely betrayer, Jack Lloyd were dead, Charles Nicolson, one of Power’s captors recalled looking out ‘for a hollow tree stump which had been described to me as ‘Power’s Watchbox’ by young Ned Kelly.’  It’s a persuasive detail. (MacFarlane cites The star, a Lyttelton, New Zealand paper dated 18 April 1903, but I tracked the reference down to the Illustrated Australian news (Melbourne) of 1 March 1892. ) Ian Jones (A short life page 49) noted the mention of the tree stump and said that it was clear that Ned might have been tricked into revealing more than he intended, but the tree stump reference sounds a little too specific to be categorized as vague information. The ‘black snake’ letter and the dropping of charges against the young Ned aren’t grounds for exoneration either. MacFarlane, however, takes no notice of Jones’s additional telling point: the reward does not seem to have reached the Kelly family. I believe that this brings in a strong element of doubt in Ned’s favour, but MacFarlane does not mention it. We will never know the truth of this one, and there are good points that could be made either way, but one thing is for sure: Power believed that it was Kelly who betrayed him.



Ned’s horse-stealing stepfather George King is a shadowy figure at the best of times. Ian Jones called him a ‘horse-stealing maestro.’ MacFarlane notes the surprising circumstance that King appears to have never been wanted by the police in Victoria, there were never any outstanding arrest warrants for him and he is not noted anywhere in official records, despite Ian Jones’s claim that his influence on Ned ‘cannot be measured or exaggerated.’ Indeed, the only mention of George King’s criminality comes from Ned himself, in the Cameron and Jerilderie letters. It would appear that King’s influence on Ned still cannot be measured, but more than likely it has been exaggerated. Having convincingly made this point, MacFarlane tries to reinforce it, but misses the mark pretty badly by saying that Bricky Williamson’s statements in gaol (made to get a reduction in his six year sentence for aiding the attempted murder of Constable Fitzpatrick) that ‘Billy King’ was at the Eleven Mile on that fateful day ‘is further evidence that Ellen’s husband George King was not involved in any criminal activities during his marriage (p 64.)’ I’m still puzzling that one out.



MacFarlane suggests that King’s alleged depredations were unconcealed in the letters because ‘if King was already dead there was no voice to contradict Ned’s explicit claims.’ He mentions the contention that King could have been murdered, citing page 111 of Dagmar Balcarek and Gary Dean’s work, Ned and the others. To quote this work on George King’s disappearance: ‘Hopefully there will be a fresh evidence [sic] found one day, not only where he had lived, but also where and when he died – or where, when and by whom … he was … murdered …?’ It’s hardly a strong asseveration, and MacFarlane neglects to mention that on the very same page Balcarek and Dean write of Ian Jones’s belief that Ellen Kelly and George King’s marriage was a happy one, and that there was some evidence of the absent George sending his family money from New South Wales. Curiously, MacFarlane does not mention the claim contained in Balcarek and Dean  (Ellen Kelly, p 175)  that poor old George was shot dead at Whorouly while following the traditional Kelly sympathiser vocation of stealing a mouldboard from a plough. (I'm indebted to Bob McGarrigle for bringing this up on the Ned Kelly Forum.)



George King’s disappearance (if this is what it was) is likely to always remain a mystery to us, but there are several other less lurid and more likely possibilities than murder. But MacFarlane only mentions one of these, on page 49 where he notes that Ellen Kelly’s counsel at her 1878 trial stated King had deserted her. MacFarlane appears unaware that Justin Corfield, in his entry on King in The Ned Kelly encyclopaedia  suggested that he could be the George King who died at Kyneton in 1879 aged 31 and was buried on 8 February, the same day the Kellys were in Jerilderie. He is similarly unaware of the oral history, noted by Jones (A short life p 381), that he relocated to Queensland and wished Ellen to accompany him. He suggests that the ‘weirdest thing about the disappearance of King was the silence of the Kelly family’ who never reported him missing. Really? Even if his disappearance was mysterious to the family, many married men tired of their obligations and simply deserted, disappeared and got jobs elsewhere in a society a lot less regulated than today. Or maybe he had left the family, deserter or not, but they knew where he was.



MacFarlane’s dislike of Ned Kelly is palpable throughout. There are times when he carries his dislike into the realms of unreason. Ned gets a bucketing for housing his Glenrowan prisoners in a weatherboard pub instead of using the brick police barracks, forgetting that it was a lot easier to entertain people in a pub, and also that Kelly probably did not expect the building to be fired upon (p 3). When the Kellys were under attack in the hotel, they ignored the screams of the women and children because ‘they were far too absorbed in showing off their new armour (p 23.)’ I would suggest that they were a lot more absorbed in preserving their lives than ‘showing off.’ He casts doubt on one of the true certainties of this story, the high regard Ned had for his mother. MacFarlane says that there is ‘no actual evidence’ for ‘a special relationship between mother Ellen and Ned (p 220), but bafflingly concedes ‘strong efforts were made on behalf of Ellen by her sons regarding the Fitzpatrick case.’  But naïve as the offer was, Ned’s offer to surrender himself and risk facing a capital charge indicates an exceedingly strong filial bond that was indeed something special.



Similarly, MacFarlane glosses over some things in his eagerness to blacken Ned’s image. The role that Ned played in furnishing the childless wife of an unfriendly neighbor with a package containing calves’ testicles is described as ‘a radical departure from acceptable behaviour, even in those rough frontier days’ (p 38). As is well known, Ned handled the disgusting thing, but neither thought up the prank or handed it to the woman. It wasn’t his finest hour, but MacFarlane ignores the fact that Ned was only one of three protagonists, and arguably the least important in this tasteless joke.



Unbelievably, MacFarlane remarks matter-of-factly that Ned was convicted at Beechworth in August 1871 of receiving a stolen horse, receiving three years, but forgets to mention that the arresting policeman, Edward Hall, brutalized Ned in the process and would have killed him had his pistol not misfired three times. Even Standish (whose crystal ball was probably at the repair shop that day) wrote at the time ‘it is a very fortunate occurrence that Senr Const Hall’s revolver did not fire.’ Hall tried to kill an unarmed lad and gave him a pistolwhipping that could have caused death or permanent damage, yet MacFarlane ignores this, as well as the fact that Wild Wright, who stole the horse that Ned unwittingly received, only got eighteen months compared to Ned’s three years. (I say unwittingly, because he rode the animal in broad daylight past the police station.) No one doubts that Ned had issues with the police, but this important incident, which would have given rise to anti-police resentment in almost anyone, is passed over with a rapidity that borders on obscene.



There are, alas, some instances where the necessity to undertake basic research is neglected. MacFarlane looks briefly at the Lydecker matter in which Ned appeared at the Oxley Police Court in August 1876 charged with stealing a horse. This occurred during the period in which Ned ‘went straight.’ The matter was cleared up, with MacFarlane claiming (page 52) that ‘the evidence was inconclusive.’ It wasn’t. Jones covers and extensively documents this episode (A short life, pp 73-75), and though it’s a bit complicated and those pages are slowish reading, it’s also clear that the problem originated out of a misunderstanding. The aggrieved party, Lydecker, withdrew the charges, but MacFarlane ignores this. There is also evidence of MacFarlane’s lack of research in another area, where he claims that the identity of the ‘Diseased Stock’ agent ‘has been the subject of speculation in modern Kelly literature’ (p 196). He doesn’t even try to identify this person by name, apparently unaware that Jones, Corfield and especially Leonard Pryor (who wrote a 26 page article on the ‘Diseased Stock’ in the December 1990 issue of the Victorian historical journal) have pretty much pinned down schoolteacher Daniel Kennedy as the informer.





Rather ingenuously, MacFarlane accuses Ned of having a ‘thick dab of racism’. He bases this on Ned's written complaint to New South Wales Premier Sir Henry Parkes about ‘an inundation of Mongolians [ie Chinese]’ on the labour market which, Ned cheekily informed the future Father of Federation, would lead to an increased incidence of highway robbery. Ned’s alleged boyhood assault on the hapless Chinese traveler Ah Fook was also brought up, along with a listing of Joe Byrne’s assaults on Chinese.  MacFarlane neglects to put this into the proper context. The dislike of Chinese in nineteenth century Victoria was hardly restricted to Ned and was pervasive throughout all levels of migrant European society in all Australian colonies at the time, and for quite some time afterwards. Moreover Ian Jones has shown in A short life (page 158) there is evidence of some support for the Kelly Gang in the Chinese community. Finally, the authenticity of the Parkes letter has been questioned by at least one respected authority, Justin Corfield, in his Ned Kelly encyclopaedia.





MacFarlane goes to excessive lengths to exculpate the police from their sins. He suggests (p 25) that ‘most police fired deliberately high so as not to injure people in the Inn’, citing as evidence for this the presence of bullet holes on the roof and chimney, neglecting the presence of bullet holes elsewhere, including some civilians. He is pretty selective in his estimation of Standish, quoting the opinion of one man, his former chief clerk that Standish was ‘very prompt in action, quick in judgement and remarkably ready with the pen’ (p 156), but ignores the more definitive and collective judgement of the 1881 Royal Commission that Standish’s conduct of police operations was ‘not characterized by good judgment, or by that zeal for the interests of the public service which should have distinguished an officer in his position.’ (Royal Commission, 2nd report, Recommendation 2.)



There are some minor factual errors in the book. As Bob McGarrigle has also pointed out on the Ned Kelly Forum, cousins John Lloyd Jr and Tom Lloyd Jr are represented as brothers, both implicitly on page 31 and explicitly on page 42. (Their sibling fathers each named their son after his uncle.) Judge Barry died on 23 November 1880, not 24 November 1880 as stated on page 136. The New South Wales Felons Apprehension Act  of 1865 was not, as MacFarlane states, aimed at bushranger Frank Gardiner and others, as Gardiner had already been apprehended in Queensland in 1864.  MacFarlane contradicts himself as well when he says that at Stringybark Creek the police ‘ambushers were not even wounded’ (p 77) and much later on (p 224) says Dan Kelly ‘is said to have been grazed slightly’ in the gunfight.



Some of the claims that MacFarlane makes are curious indeed and not backed up at all. I would love to know how he knows (p 87) that Ned only used a third of the required amount of powder in his percussion revolvers!  He also makes the claim (which he does not support) that Ned suspected Steve Hart and Joe Byrne of treachery at times (p 185). Superintendent Francis Augustus Hare opined in his The last of the bushrangers (which is far more an autobiography of Hare than a biography of Ned, the title notwithstanding) that Ned 'would not have trusted [Steve Hart] away from himself, for fear of his surrendering and turning informer against his companions.' We do know that Ned kept Steve close at Euroa and for the first part of Glenrowan. But Hare's odd relationship and perennially misplaced trust in Aaron Sherritt shows that on at least this instance he had trouble reading the character of someone he saw every day, so it's hard to give his ruminatory  hypothesis about Ned and Steve much weight. In any case, even if Ned needed to keep an eye on Steve, this is a lot different from believing that Steve was a possible informer or traitor.



To the best of my knowledge, Joe's loyalty to Ned was never questioned. For either Joe or Steve it would have been a stupid move on their part, given that their hopes of talking themselves out of anything but confinement for life (if they were really lucky!) would have been pretty forlorn. It is disappointing that MacFarlane did not back it up with a source or even a suggestion of one. If this book ever makes it to a new edition, it’s the first thing for which I’ll be looking.