Many years back (2005) I did an article about the Ned Kelly
Centenary Festival at Winton that took place in November of 1980. My
interest was piqued after hearing about and then seeing the souvenir
booklet for it and I followed up on it and even was in contact with the
festival director, Peter Galvin. All of that can be read at http://elevenmilecreek.
What
I have just come to find out is that there was yet another Ned Kelly
Centenary celebration that year in June. While the November one was for
the centenary of Ned's death/hanging, this one was on the weekend of
June 28/29, 1980 and it was called Ned Kelly's Last Stand Centenary.
When I was doing research for the 2005 article linked above we did not
have the Trove newspaper database to use, otherwise I would have found
the information about the other event sooner. I only just found the info
by stumbling over it during a free access weekend for a subscription
based newspaper database (and then going to Trove and finding more info). There must not have a souvenir booklet or
programme to leave as a bread crumb for the Glenrowan June event like
there was for the November Winton one. Or, if there was, it has escaped
my notice.
Don Tibbitts, then owner of the
Glenrowan Tourist Centre was president of the planning committee for
the June event. It took 12 months of planning and a cost of about $4,000
to get it all together. When the weekend came, it was rainy and there
was lots of mud (enough to bog a duck as one article wryly commented).
Despite the weather, according to one source, 10,000 people attended.
Another source said "over 6,000."
There
were loads of activities planned with the re-enactment of the Last Stand
and burning of the Inn as the centerpiece. There would be a fee for
viewing that spectacle, as they needed to recoup costs and to raise
funds for the local kindergarten. More on how the re-enactment went in a
bit.
There was a full slate of activities planned. A square
dance on Friday night and a Colonial Ball on Saturday night went well
as they were inside but some of the other things set outside such as a
fun run/walk up to Morgan's Lookout had to be canceled due to the rain.
Other planned activities included per The Age of June 20, 1980-
An arts and crafts bazaar featuring glassblowers, potters, spinners and blacksmiths
a facsimile of Ned's armour made especially for the event, to be auctioned off after the re-enactment
The armour worn by Mick Jagger in the Ned Kelly film was on display
The
Victorian Police put on an exhibition of Kelly armour, a saddlebag,
handcuffs, and so forth along with a photographic display of the Kelly
era
Aust. Post was to have pre-stamped envelopes and a special franking stamp to commemorate the centenary of the Last Stand
There was to be a display of limited edition Centenary medallions
An exhibition called 100 Bushrangers featuring photos and copies of prison and convict records
exhibition and sale of paintings by Frank Harding called "Kelly Gang and Colonial Days"
Steam engine displays and early model oil engines and demonstrations of muzzle loaders and cannons of the era.
But,
as mentioned before the big deal was the Last Stand re-enactment
featuring "40 actors...and vintage steam train and replica of the Inn"
According to the Age newspaper of June 30, 1980 -
"The
latter day Kelly gang (members of the Historical Re-enactment Society)
shot it out in a paddock on the outskirts of town about 500 metres from
the site of the original siege. The actors sloshed around in the mud
outside a building, dragged in for the occasion, representing the Jones
Hotel. Spectators greeted the "police" with a few desultory cheers and
spent the rest of the re-enactment cheering actors as they fell in the
mud. The "hotel" was set alight as a finale and then the Kelly armour,
made for the occasion, was auctioned."
Another
article states that Gary Dean won the armour for a bid of $1,200. Also
in another article Gary Dean said that when they dragged in the building
to be used as the Inn that they had to carefully guard it around the
clock to avoid having it prematurely burned down(!)
The
Age article from June 30 also had Centenary organizer Don Tibbitts as
saying "the town has a duty to preserve it's history and it's good for
business."
The article also quoted from Kelly
relatives in the area expressing displeasure and saying that none of
them would be going. The article also stated that "No Kelly relatives
were invited to the celebrations."
