Bill Frost - Ellen Kelly's Forgotten Lover [Brian Stevenson]

 Despite her reputation as the 'notorious' Mrs Kelly, and despite the scrutiny applied to the documented actions of just about all members of her family over the last 130 years plus, Ned Kelly's mother Ellen had only three lovers whose names are known to history.

Everyone interested in the Kelly story has heard of John 'Red' Kelly, father of Ned, who once said of his ex-convict and hard-drinking dad 'a finer man never drew breath.' Most know of George King, the transplanted Californian who became Ned's stepfather and probably helped his stepson with the finer points of organised stock theft. But Bill Frost, an English stockrider whose association with Ellen Kelly occurred between that of her two husbands is pretty much forgotten.

According to his entry in Justin Corfield's Ned  Kelly  Encyclopedia William Frost was born in Suffolk in 1833 and probably arrived in Melbourne in 1857. He worked on a property near Greta owned by Hector Simson of Laceby. In June 1869 he had an affair with Ellen Kelly. When she became pregnant, Frost promised to marry her. However, when in March 1870 their baby daughter, Ellen, was born, Frost broke his promise. Ellen had to take him to court to compel him to support the child, and the story was reported in the Benalla Ensign and Farmer's and Squatter's journal for 21 October 1871.

The court heard that Frost was a constant weekend visitor at Eleven Mile Creek, generally going there on Saturday and leaving on Sunday night or Monday morning, and staying overnight in Ellen's room. Ellen testified to this effect, and remembered Frost sleeping with her on or about 25 June 1869 - a female child, also called Ellen, was born on 25 March 1870. According to Ellen, Frost had promised to provide for the child, and had bought little Ellen several presents, including a suit of clothes. Frost had never denied that the child was his, but when he made plans to marry another woman, the support had dried up. Ellen's solicitor had written to him and Frost had visited the Eleven Mile and told Ellen he would give her five or ten pounds and his horse to settle the matter. But Ellen, unsurprisingly, was not satisfied.

A couple of other men named William Gray and Jack Daniels (!) were boarding on and off at the Eleven Mile at the time, but Ellen denied intimacy with either of them. Her son-in-law, often referred to as William Skillion, but referred to here as William Skilling backed her up. Annie Gunn, Ellen's married daughter, stated that Frost was intimate with her mother and that he had admitted the paternity of little Ellen on several occasions. Moreover, Frost had given her a pound to buy clothes for the child. Annie Murdoch, a neighbour of Ellen Kelly, testified that she cooked a meal for Frost one evening and saw him go into Ellen's room for the night. Finally, a witness named Hanna Malyon swore that she had remonstrated with Frost over the matter: 'Why don't you pay Mrs Kelly; you know you are the father of the child!' Frost replied: 'I know that, but I won't pay her anything, but I do not deny the child and will not deny it in court.'

The Police Magistrate, Mr Butler heard the evidence and made his decision. As the Ensign expressed it: 'The Bench remarked that it men would be so foolish as to do such things they must expect a penalty for their actions.' For once, the law came down on the side of the Kelly family. On 17 October 1871, Frost was ordered to pay five shillings a week for two years for the support of little Ellen.

Sad to relate, Frost was not out of pocket for too long. In January 1872, little Ellen died. She was buried on 30 January and, presumably, Frost was off the hook for payments.

It would appear that the Kelly family was fond of the name Ellen. As well as little Ellen, who died at less than two years old, Ellen Kelly had another daughter called Ellen by George King, Ned's official stepfather. This Ellen lived a long life and died in 1963. Annie Gunn, the eldest Kelly girl, had a little girl, also named Ellen, by her husband Alex Gunn. The baby, born in 1871, lived only a few months. Newly married Maggie Skilling (or Skillion) had a baby that she named Ellen, also. This Ellen drowned herself as a young woman in 1897 after an argument over money with her defacto stepfather - none other than Tom Lloyd - possibly influencing Kate Kelly's possible suicide in the lagoon at Forbes, New South Wales the next year. All of which means that Ellen Kelly named two of her daughters after herself, and had two granddaughters named after her!

As for William Frost, by the time he was being taken court for maintenance, he was already married to another woman, Bridget Cotter. They married in June 1871, but nothing is known about the first ten years or so of their married life, during which, of course, Frost's defacto stepson Ned grew to manhood and became a legend even before being claimed by the gallows. Frost was presumably very aware of Ned's exploits, but there is no record of what he thought of them, or if he felt a twinge when Ellen was sentenced to three years gaol in 1878 in the wake of the Fitzpatrick affray, or when two of her sons died highly publicised deaths in 1880.

Bridget left Frost in April 1882 and went to Melbourne but in October he travelled to the city and brought her back. After she returned, the two of them got on better, and, in Bridget's words, 'he did not ill-treat me in any way.' But it seems that Bill Frost still had issues, and on 13 November they came to a head.

Bill woke up at 4 when he heard his dogs barking and grumpily went back to bed. Bridget arose about 4.30 and went to boil water for his tea. Before the water had time to boil, Frost (obviously a sensitive Victorian age guy) called out to her angrily 'Bring me that tea.' Peculiarly, in Bridget's words, she 'made tea and toast, and beat an egg up in the tea and gave it to him.' (This may have been a misprint in the newspaper.) She put it on a box near him and said to him 'Take that and you'll be able to get up.' Bill answered 'I'm not going to get up - I'm going to die.' Bridget said nothing and went out and had some tea - hopefully without an egg in it.

Bill then called out to her 'Send for your brother, for you'll want him, as you'll have more trouble on your mind than you are aware of.' Bridget retorted that she would have to make some arrangement before she sent for her brother, because he had a good job with good wages. She went on with her domestic chores, and was skimming milk when Bill 'called out in an angry tone for me to come.'

When she came into the room, Bill produced an uncorked bottle and told her to look at it. She took the bottle and put on her glasses and read the label: strychnine. 'You wicked man!' said Bridget. 'Are you going to poison yourself?'

Bill said: 'Look at that cup.'  Bridget looked and saw that the cup in which she had brought the tea was empty. She thought Frost was trying to frighten her, but still said 'I must send for the doctor.' She called a young lad called John Reisenauer, who was in their employ, and told him to catch a horse and go for the doctor. Frost called out to John: 'You can't catch any horse and I don't want the doctor.' Bridget went on with her housework, but John told her to come to Frost quickly. Frost was in pain and struggling and she said: 'Can I do anything for you?' Frost answered: 'It's no good now: I must die.' By 6.55 am William Frost, Ellen Kelly's forgotten lover was dead.

A full account of the inquest was published in the North Eastern Ensign (Benalla) the next day, 14 November 1882. Dr Nicholson, presumably the same individual who treated Ned Kelly after he was captured at Glenrowan (and, in an action presumably not in accordance with medical ethics, souvenired the famous green silk sash) testified that Bill's body was well nourished, had sound organs and showed no trace of disease. But to the doctor's mind the evidence was enough to show that Bill Frost had died from strychnine poisoning. The jury, no doubt mindful of the low regard that suicide was held in those days, probably alleviated Bridget's feelings a little by ruling that Bill had been of unsound mind at the time.

A little over two years before, Ned Kelly had said that he feared death as little as to drink a cup of tea. Ironically, one of the fringe players in the Kelly saga would demonstrate this in a way that could not have been more literal. 

Bridget Frost died in 1884.



[A Reminder: Though it says "posted by Sharon Hollingsworth" this blog was written by Brian Stevenson, I uploaded it for him as he was having technical difficulties doing so.]