Douglas Morrissey thesis - chapter 3 - The Truth About Stock Impoundings in the Kelly Country in the 1870s [Brian Stevenson]

Note that this is the second in an ongoing series of chapter reviews of Doug Morrissey's 1987 thesis "Selectors, Squatters and Stock Thieves: A Social History of Kelly Country." The first part can be found at


 http://elevenmilecreek.blogspot.com/2010/11/douglas-morrisseys-unpublished-thesis.html


Everyone reading this will be familiar with Ned Kelly's views on stock impoundings, as outlined in the Jerilderie Letter.

'If a poor man happened to leave his horse or a bit of a poddy calf outside his paddock they would be impounded. I have known over sixty head of horses impounded in one day by Whitty and Byrne all belonging to poor farmers. They would have to leave their ploughing or harvest or other employment to go to Oxley. When they would get there [they would] perhaps not have money enough to release them and have to give a bill of sale or borrow money.'



Pretty hard times for the selectors, yes. But how accurate is the picture? Fortunately, it is possible for us to compare this depressing picture with the picture derived by Douglas Morrissey. Morrissey did his research the hard way, and combed through old newspapers, shire records, government gazette and the like and distilled the information from these usually dry sources into his thesis on social conditions in the Kelly Country during the Kelly period. Ned's impassioned (and, it will be shown, somewhat misleading prose) is available on countless places on the web, but Morrissey's work is largely unpublished. It provides a contrasting picture indeed.



For a start, the picture that Ned paints of mass impoundings to the tune of 60 a day is misleading, to say the least. It was on very rare occasions that the impoundings in the Oxley Shire exceeded 20 or 30 animals. Morrissey states: 'The regional norm was much lower and generally remained constant at around five or ten animals.' But single animal impoundings were by far the most common occurrence, although in October 1877 Mark Whitty, scion of the man who Ned accosted at the races, had 35 trespassing cows impounded. Morrissey concedes that this particular episode did result in some economic hardship, as most of these animals were not redeemed after a week, but the days of mass impoundings were pretty much over by the late 1870s.



Why were animals impounded? 'Pressure to conserve available resources such as pasture land and access to the region's waterholes' was, of course, the biggest factor. The intention seems to have been, not to harass the selectors but to ensure that the selectors kept their livestock on their own land or on the land designated as commons. The impoundings were to encourage that the district's livestock grazed exclusively on the land of their owners, something that in itself is entirely fair and reasonable.



The impounding rate was very high in the early 1870s, when fences were still being erected, but decreased dramatically as more land was fenced. In 1870 1 137 animals were impounded, but for most of the decade the figure was around the 200 mark, with a peak figure, 253, being reached in 1876. When the Kellys were out, the number of impoundings decreased dramatically, showing the fear and intimidation that they inspired. In 1878, for most of which year, of course, the Kelly Gang did not exist, the figure was 199. It dropped dramatically to less than 90 animals and in 1880 the number was an incredible 26. With the Kellys wiped out, the number rebounded to 106 in 1881.



All things considered, it seems extremely unlikely that an impounding of 60 animals in a day would ever have occurred, Ned's estimate in the Jerilderie letter notwithstanding. Judging by the statistics, it seems most likely that most days passed without a single animal being impounded.



What Ned also overlooked was that some squatters, no doubt liking a quiet life, simply overlooked trespassing livestock. Squatter McBean, famously a victim of Harry Power, told the Benalla Land Board in 1872 that he had decided not to bother with impounding because, as the victim of several arson attempts, he did not want to be 'burnt out.'



Also unmentioned in the Jerilderie Letter were impounding disputes between selectors, with no squatter involvement. There is no way that Ned could be unaware of this. Long before anyone had heard of Ned, his cousins the Lloyds and the Barnett family (later to be Kelly sympathisers as well) had a bitter squabble over access to water. Barnett found some of Jack Lloyd Senior's in his wheat and decided to take them to the pound. Jack Lloyd and his son Tom arrived on horseback and easily rescued their livestock, but Barnett retaliated by taking out a summons against Jack for 'rescuing impounded horses.'



The next day, Barnett noticed that his horse was missing. He tracked the animal to the Lloyd house, and found his horse tied up in O'Brien's stable, which adjoined Lloyd's property. The poor creature had been tied up and cruelly hacked to death with a tomahawk. It wasn't too hard to figure out the culprit. Lloyd, not a nice person, was not very bright either, and was still wearing a shirt and trousers caked with dried blood, which he tried to blame on a cut finger when Constable Ernest Flood (funny how these folks keep turning up) made the arrest. In February 1873 Lloyd was sentenced to a well warranted four years imprisonment with hard labour, for an offence that attracted a maximum of ten years imprisonment. The judge took into consideration Lloyd's mature age, overlooking the fact that he should have known a lot better.

(Special note: if Doug Morrissey reads this, it would be great if he got in touch!)

The next installment of this series has now been added at

http://elevenmilecreek.blogspot.com/2011/06/douglas-morrisseys-thesis-chapter-4.html

Event Alert: Glenrowan Siege Dinner July 2, 2011?

Event Alert:
http://www.visitwangaratta.com.au/events.asp


Glenrowan Siege Dinner

Date: 2 July 2011

Venue: Glenrowan Hotel, Glenrowan

Contact Details:    

Paddy Milne 0407 311 899



The Glenrowan siege and Ned Kelly's capture will be commemmorated on Saturday 2nd July.   The event includes entertainment and a spit roast at the Glenrowan Recreation Reserve.

A great night's entertainment will be provided by Will Williamson and his son, Hamish, accompanied by various groups including the popular Wangaratta Ukelele Band, Gill Delaney, a piper and a Melbourne opera singer. 
$35  per person with discounts for pensioners and families.

That website is the ONLY place thus far I have found this information as of this moment, so if anyone finds any further information or rings through and gets details (or finds that it has been cancelled for some reason) please let us know! If I find any further info regarding it/confirming it I will post it, also.

Also at the Glenrowan Gazette website I read where they are making plans for another Kelly Country Festival for the the first weekend in October 2011.Wonder if there will be another siege reenactment?

Stay tuned!

The Jerilderie Letter from 1879 to 1930 [Sharon Hollingsworth]

Recently on a Kelly related forum researcher Kelvyn Gill had done a posting asking if anyone knew which edition of the Melbourne Argus from 1930 had printed Ned Kelly's Jerilderie Letter. It seems that Ian Jones had mentioned in the Spring 2000 issue of the Latrobe Journal that "a government copy of the letter was made and presented at Ned's trial. Incredibly, his incompetent defence counsel objected to its being tendered as evidence. The copy was filed away and forgotten.
The Melbourne Argus printed this government text of the letter in 1930, and it was again forgotten until 1948, when Max Brown published it as an appendix to his fine Kelly biography, Australian Son."

I emailed Kelvyn Gill and let him know from my research that the Argus was not the newspaper that the Jerilderie Letter appeared in in 1930. It was the (Adelaide) Register News-Pictorial that ran a series called "The Kellys are Out!" written by J.M.S. Davies (an Adelaide writer, thus the Register News-Pictorial getting the exclusive) that ran between September 13 and October 15, 1930. It later ran in the Melbourne Herald in November and December of 1930. Seems that the Herald gets heralded as the one to carry it for the first time in decades, but the Adelaide paper was really the one that should get the kudos. You can search out the series at http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/home

Brian McDonald's "What They Said About Ned!" says of the series that it "includes an edited version of the Jerilderie Letter e.g. grammar, spelling, punctuation and the reference to the calf's testicles has been left out."

We can only wonder why Davies did not wish to use that bit. Was he worried about delicacy?

Below is where Kelvyn Gill put showing what was used and what was missing in regards to that section of the letter.

Ned’s Jerilderie letter – black text; changes made in Davies’ story are struck out for omissions and red words are those added or replacing words struck out.

When McCormack's got the horse they came straight out to Goold  Gould and accused him of working the horse it; this was false and Goold Gould was amazed at the idea I could not help laughing to hear Mrs. McCormack

accusing him of using the horse after him being so kind as to send  when he had actually sent his boy to take him from the Ruta Cruta and take bring him back to them. I pleaded Goulds innocence and Mrs. McCormack turned on me and accused me of bringing the horse from Greta to Goold's waggon  Gould’s wagon to pull him out of the bog I did not say much to the woman as my mother was present but that same day me and my uncle was cutting calves  Gould wrapped  up wrote a note and a pair of the calves  testicles and gave them it to me to give them to Mrs. McCormack. I did not see her and gave the parcel to a boy to give to her when she would come instead of home giving it

to her he gave it to her husband consequently McCormack  and because of the note McCormack said he would summons me I told him neither me  I nor Goold Gould used their horse.







It is too bad that Ned Kelly was not able to get his letter published in full back in 1879 as he wished to. However The Age newspaper printed an article on February 18, 1879 that had some of the letter's contents in it.. Kelvyn Gill sent me the text of the article found at the State Library of Victoria. It can also be found online at:
http://inside.theage.com.au/view_bestofarticle.php?straction=update&inttype=1&intid=468

The article begins with:




"After the exciting scene with Mr. Rankin in the Royal Mail Hotel, Kelly took Richards and Living with him to look for Mr. Gill, who had run away. Mr. Gill is the proprietor of the Jerilderie and Urana Gazette, and his office is about thirty yards from the hotel. Kelly said he only wanted Gill to publish a statement of his life, which he had prepared. He then took out of his pocket a large roll of paper, fifty-seven sheets in all, closely written on. He was particularly anxious that it should be published, and Mr. Living, desirous of saving Mrs. Gill any further uneasiness, asked Kelly for the statement, and promised to give it to Gill for publication. Kelly then gave Mr. Living the statement, threatening that if he did not publish it he would have to suffer. Mr. Gill did not return from his hiding place until after Mr. Living had left for Melbourne, taking with him the statement, which he showed Mr. Hanlan at his hotel, near Deniliquin. When he resumed his journey he forgot the papers, and Mr. Hanlan made a copy of the statement, and posted the original to Melbourne; but Mr. Living has not yet received it back. On his return journey, however, Mr. Living obtained Mr. Hanlan's copy, but he has since received a communication from Superintendent Brown, who took it upon himself to instruct Mr. Living not to give the letter to the press or make known its contents until he receives the authority of the Attorney General to do so. Living has, therefore, positively refused to give the copy which he now has in his possession, but on Mr. Hanlan being interviewed, his recollection of the contents of the letter appeared to be very good..."

Michael Ball pointed out something interesting in this. It says that Living accidentally left the letter at Hanlon's [Hanlon is the correct spelling, not Hanlan] place and that Hanlon had to mail it to Melbourne?!! First time I had heard that. Interesting in the extreme.

 

Bill Skillion's talkative 'brother'? [Brian Stevenson]

Everybody wants a piece of the legend.

How many people have our readers met that have some distant, distant claim to fame related to the Ned Kelly story? And I mean distant. Well, even when many of the participants were still alive, there were folks around who were anxious for a share of reflected glory, no matter how loose the connection. And they were not above exaggerating their role in the proceedings either!

A case in point is one character who stepped forward to 'confess' his connections to the Kelly Gang at the unlikely venue of a Salvation Army meeting in Lithgow in November 1905. The confessor claimed to be James Skillion, brother of William, who many readers will know was married to Maggie Kelly and was sentenced to six years in gaol for his part in the so-called attempted murder of Constable Alexander Fitzpatrick.

William seems to be a luckless character all around. Six years in gaol for, at most, being in the wrong place at the wrong time, and for, at least, a passing resemblance to Joe Byrne, and then to lose your wife to another while you were inside is not the stuff of which tales of lustrous and glittering fortune are made. And we can be sure that no one would have ever heard of poor old Bill, unable, in the words of his celebrated brother- in- law, to discern a revolver from a saucepan handle, had it not been for his family connections, but in turn of the century Lithgow, someone was eager to claim a connection, genuine or not, to him.

No one seems to have recorded (in a widely available source, anyway) whether William Skillion had a brother called James. In any case, this individual claiming to be James Skillion recounted some of his experiences to the Salvation Army meeting, no doubt enthralling his audience with his tales, presumably more than they would be had the meeting been a routine one.

And what good tales they were!

According to the Adelaide Advertiser of 20 November, 'Skillion told the Lithgow audience that in his capacity as telegraph for the gang he assumed various disguises, sometimes carrying a swag, at other times wearing a belltopper, and sometimes dressing in Kate Kelly's clothes.'

A belltopper, folks, is a sort of tall silk hat, remarkably unsubtle attire for someone in the Kelly country who was hoping to remain disguised. Lucky, was it not, that Kate and 'James' were the same dress size?

Skillion talked freely of his other escapades, and showed the audience the marks of a bullet wound in the fleshy part of his leg. Those of you who recall the claims of one of the many fake Dan Kellys around from a few years back will no doubt be relieved to realise that this chap at least did not have his initials carved into his buttocks!

According to James, the Kellys were generous with the proceedings of the money from their robberies. Indeed, he received three thousand pounds for his part in the affairs, and spent it in travelling through America and Great Britain with Kate Kelly and Kate Byrne, Joe's sister. (From what I recall, the Kellys used at least part of the money for needs more pressing than a Northern Hemisphere vacation for their relatives and associates.) James further claimed that the proceeds were shared amongst about 100 sympathisers, which means that his role must have been prominent indeed, given that the total proceeds from one of the two major robberies, Euroa, was only two thousand pounds.

Well, James seems to have only enjoyed his reflected glory for a short time. The sombre taciturnity of the Kelly family, the interviews with Cookson apart, is well known, but for some reason the utterances of James Skillion - if this was his name - were too much for Jack Kelly, also known as Jack King, and half-brother to Ned and Dan, and to Maggie, who had married Bill Skillion. (Maggie had been dead since 1896.)

Jack broke his silence with a letter to the Melbourne Argus, that was published on 24 November. Like his brothers, he was working with horses - but in an honest line of work at Wirth's Circus. He noted in his letter that William Skillion was still alive, and living in Greta, but directed most of his remarks to the subject of James.

Jack was scathing even with the minor details. James Skillion's so-called bullet wound, he claimed, was 'probably the mark left by a boil.' Jack also pointed out that the total spoils known to have resulted from the Euroa robbery were only two thousand pounds, one thousand less than James claimed to have received. Kate Kelly, according to Jack, never travelled outside of New South Wales or Victoria. Jack stated that he knew nothing of Kate Byrne, but that Joe Byrne's sister was Mary - actually, Byrne had four sisters, two of whom were named Catherine and Mary.

Jack also noted that Skillion had not named the person who made Ned's armour. 'For his reticence on the subject I can easily account by saying that Skillion doesn't know himself. I do know, but I do not think there are three other mean alive today who possess the same knowledge.'

There is a certain weariness about Jack's concluding remarks: 'Of late I, as well as the other remaining members of the Kelly family, have from time to time been annoyed by statements emanating from the lips of notoriety-seekers of the Lithgow-Skillion calibre - people who desire to become notorious, but are not endowed with a sufficient amount of courage to enable them to risk either liberty or life in so doing ... I am not aware that any James Skillion ever played any important part in connection with the gang of which I write. In fact, I am perfectly satisfied in my own mind that the claimant to notoriety never even saw my brothers.'

The Exploits of the Kelly Gang Were Not Always Front Page News [Sharon Hollingsworth]

In our modern world we are used to seeing front page newspaper headlines in bold type (and above the fold) screaming out at us with the latest important or sensational news. But back in the heyday of the Kelly Gang that was not always the case.

Looking at the Trove/NLA newspaper site I see that there are 17 papers that had around 1,700 news articles from 1878 to 1880 that featured the Kelly Gang. The major papers listed were the Argus, Brisbane Courier and Sydney Morning Herald. Back in that era many newspapers did not put any news on their front pages.
The [Melbourne] Argus always put advertisements on their front page (these days we are used to those in the back!) back then.
Even when the Kellys were at their most sensational the articles about them were usually several pages further inside!


Coincidentally, during research for this already conceived and nearly finished article I ran across an article from the Argus dated June 3, 1946 called "Newspaper Styles Have Changed Over The Years - The Trend Has Been From Many Words To Few" by Professor A.R. Chisholm in which this was said:

"Even by the 'eighties [1880s], headlines of the type now familiar to newspaper readers had not been evolved. When Ned Kelly was captured, for example, it did not make front-page news. The account of it was set out in the usual small type on page 5 (the front page was sacred to advertisements and notices), with only a few single-column headlines and a note to say that the news had come "By Electric Telegraph."

Well, that seems to confirm what I independently came up with, doesn't it? Don't they say that great minds think alike?  ;)

From what I can glean the only time the Kellys made the front page of the Argus was when there was a supplement periodically published called "Argus Summary for Europe." Other papers had extra supplements now and then that put news of the Kellys in a digest form but those were few and far between.
I have read that the major Australian papers for the most part did not put news on the front page until the time of the First World War. The [Melbourne] Herald started with news on the front in 1889.
Many of the rural papers had been running front page news articles well before then. But even that was a rarity for the Kellys. At Trove I found front page headlines for the Kellys in The Queanbeyan Age, The Mercury, and NT Times and Gazette only about once or twice each.

Looking elsewhere online I found bits about the Kellys from the [Beechworth] Ovens & Murray Advertiser and even then there were only half a dozen times they made the front page.

I have not seen the papers for Jerilderie, but I can imagine they were on the front page for that as it was ground zero for a major exploit!

I guess seeing covers for periodicals like The Illustrated Australian News and The Australasian Sketcher made me think that the Kellys were always front page news.

Another interesting aspect is that at times the reporting on the
Kellys was overshadowed by other (often lesser) events. For instance,
I have read that when there was a cricket "riot" in Sydney involving
cricket legend David Gregory when he was playing against the touring English team and that it commanded more newspaper space than the Kelly Gang raid on Jerilderie did in the SMH.

Speaking of David Gregory, Michael Ball has told me about some
interesting Kelly Gang tie-ins concerning him. David Gregory was said
to have had the most famous beard in Australia up until the emergence
of Ned Kelly in the public eye. Also, Gregory's mother, Mary Ann, was a
sister to John Thomas Smith the seven-time mayor of
Melbourne who was father to 3 daughters (who would be David's cousins)
who had Kelly Gang ties. Helen Smith married Assistant Commissioner of
Police Charles Hope Nicolson, Louisa Smith married Sub-Inspector
Stanhope O'Connor and Catherine Smith (Webb) was on the police special train
with her sister Louisa during the siege of Glenrowan.

Did Fitzpatrick Try to Take Liberties with Kate Kelly? [Brian Stevenson]

(Special note: This thread is my work, but much of it, authored by me and under my name, was previously posted on the Kellycountry2000 Forum some time ago.)

We will never know for sure what happened at the Eleven Mile late in the afternoon of 15 April 1878. Ian Jones gives something like eight possible scenarios, with the helpful reminders that most of them are dodgy, and just about everyone that was there was known to have lied about some aspect or another. But did Fitzpatrick place himself at fault by attempting to take liberties with Kate?

We don't know that for sure, either, but a couple of years ago I came across something that did rock my socks. An article in a police journal contained the detail that after his capture at Glenrowan, Ned himself admitted that the story of Fitzpatrick annoying his sister was 'a silly story' or something of that nature. Ned added something to the effect that had Fitzpatrick really molested or otherwise annoyed Kate, there would not have been enough police in Victoria to protect him.

This little gem staggered me at the time, so I asked my good friend Sharon Hollingsworth to check it out, and there it was - the Age of 9 August 1880.

As it happens, Ned was not being interviewed by a journalist, but by a lawyer, none other than David Gaunson, who would later defend him. Fair enough, by now Ned had pretty well run out of excuses for his behaviour and nothing would have saved him from the gallows, but surely he would have used Fitzpatrick's annoying of Kate as some slight excuse for the precipitation of the trouble. Or even just mentioned it. No police verballing involved here, but still he says that Fitzpatrick's alleged annoying of Kate was 'a silly story.' So, by Ned's own account, Fitzpatrick didn't pester Kate.
The Kate-Fitzpatrick clash has been regarded as a given for almost as long as the Kellys have been more than locally notorious. As we all know - or think we know - it was the spark that led directly to a conflagration at Glenrowan two years, two months and two weeks later. Most commentators admit that they do not know what exactly occurred between Kate and Fitzpatrick, either on 15 April or beforehand, but they assume that something occurred.

So, if it occurred ... Why was Ned quoted in the Age of 9 August 1880 saying it was 'a silly story'?

Not even in the most cryptic terms, not even in a way that would have partly shielded his sister.

If it occurred, why did the defence at the trial of Ellen, Williamson and Skillion not call Kate to give her version of events, despite an invitation to do so by the Crown Prosecutor? (Ian Jones, Ned Kelly: A Short Life, 1995, p 112) Another free kick left unexploited. What jury would have convicted a woman whose only crime was to help defend her daughter? But the advantages inherent in this line of defence seem to have escaped Mr Bowman, the defence lawyer, whose only card was the testimony of two residents that Bill Skillion was with them when Fitzpatrick said he was at the Eleven Mile. (Ned Kelly: A Short Life, page 123 - it didn't help much.)

It is very curious indeed that Mr Bowman did not use the story, and that no one suggested to him that it be used. And while it is very risky indeed to suggest the course that history would have taken had something happened otherwise, it seems likely that had Ellen Kelly's story been accepted, and had she (and Bricky Williamson and William Skillion) would have received sentences that were nowhere near as draconian.

But the story was never used, not when it counted, not when it could have made a difference.

After the evening of 26 October 1878, when Ned, Dan and their two friends had committed three murders, it was all academic anyway, and nothing could have saved them. But Ned used two other opportunities to justify himself, the Cameron and the Jerilderie letters. Both documents contain copious references to Fitzpatrick, and Ned's loathing and contempt of and disgust for the man are palpable.

But nowhere is there a reference to Fitzpatrick's interaction, major or minor, wise or unwise, appropriate or inappropriate with Kate. The letters that Ned wanted to use to state his case, which he did, in thousands of words, are silent on what should have been a trump card for his cause. Yet the trump card went unused, and Ned would later describe the story attached to it as 'silly.'

So ... three pretty good opportunities for the story to be brought out (the trial of Ellen, et al, and the two letters) - all missed. And when it's all over, Ned denies the story anyway. Folks, can you excuse me for wondering about this one??

The first mention that I could find of the story came from Kate herself, shortly before Jerilderie, when, in the Melbourne Herald of 7 February 1879 she was quoted as saying that Fitzpatrick had, at the Eleven Mile, commenced 'in a violent manner to behave improperly.'

A few days later her brother would repeat the story at Jerilderie, but at Glenrowan the next year he would recant it.

Did the pair of them, with or without others, cook up a belated 'excuse' for Ned's later actions? Or has your blogger got it wrong, and is there a plausible explanation as to why such a circumstance, weighing strongly as it did in Ned Kelly's favour - and there were not many of those - was left unused and unuttered for so long?

We can speculate forever, but we will never know.

Article Alert: News on Pentridge Gaol's Redevelopment

From Google Alerts:


Snippets from an article in the Moreland Leader dated April 23, 2011 called "Pentridge Works: Jail Ripe for Grape Escape" talking about the redevelopment of Pentridge Gaol's D-Division:


...One hundred and eighty of the 208 cells are being redeveloped as state-of-the-art wine cellar storage units and marketed to vintage collectors and companies.....

Owners will gain access to the division’s wing for events and functions, and access to an exclusive warden’s lounge that will overlook a rose garden where Ned Kelly’s remains will be buried....

Ten cells, including cell 67 - used to house prisoners prior to hanging - will be retained as a public museum.....

For more see:

http://moreland-leader.whereilive.com.au/lifestyle/story/jail-ripe-for-grape-escape/

Robitt Jon Clow - The cause of Kelly [Brian Stevenson]

Among the oddest of literary manifestations of the Kelly story must surely be Robitt Jon Clow's play in blank verse, The cause of Kelly: a complete history of the primitive colonial war between the Kelly family and the police in blank verse. (It's got a long title too.) I looked at a copy in the Fryer Library at the University of Queensland in Brisbane: to own such an item is prohibitively expensive, but thanks to the existence of fine research libraries such as Fryer, literary treasures (and horrifying literary curiosities) can be perused by the general public for free.

Clow, a minister of religion who was born in 1876 and died in 1952 was a correspondent of J J Keneally. In a 1944 letter to the author of The complete inner history of the Kelly Gang and their pursuers, and published in one of the many editions of that work, Clow related how he had met 'a lady neighbor' who went to school with Steve Hart. Naturally, he was frequently named as the best behaved boy in the school for that week! The Reverend Clow also recalled his meeting with Mr Ingram, the bookseller at Beechworth, who remembered Ned as being 'of a quiet, unassuming disposition - a quiet and gentlemanly man' and Joe as 'a very nice little fellow' and 'well behaved.'

As for the play, it's a curious little volume. I have not turned up any evidence of it ever being performed, and it seems more than likely that Clow paid to have it printed in Ballarat in 1919. One wonders if many people attended the launch, but at least the volume was produced!

His sympathies are unsubtle, even if his praise of Ned is awkwardly phrased: 'No matter what his faults were, he is the father of our National Courage and the heart of our Literature.' Clow thought it was strange that Barry's statue 'should obtrude the entrance to our Public Library ... Why has his stature [sic] not been removed by direction of Parliament and used to macadamise the road?' (It seems that our playwright has forgotten, for the moment, that the community-spirited Barry practically invented the Public Library of Victoria.)

Clow says in the Introduction 'I have striven to make my narrative accord with history', but even allowing for dramatic licence, inaccuracies abound. Fitzpatrick (rendered here as Fitz-Patrick) flees the Eleven Mile instead of departing with a boot up his hindquarters: Joe shoots Lonigan: all shoot Scanlon and Dan finishes off Kennedy. For some reason that I cannot make out, Ned tries to incite Wild Wright, who appears to be terrified of the Gang, into murdering Constable Arthur. Wild, obviously, neglects to do so. Sadlier [sic] tries to bribe Wild to give information about the Kellys, but Wild refuses to cooperate, more out of fear than loyalty to Ned.

For some reason, Curnow is described in the dramatis personae as one of Ned's 'slippery friends' - Aaron Sherritt is the other. Gaunson is misnamed as Bill Gaunson, not David, and the courageous sister who dares so much and so often for the Gang is named as Nell, not Maggie. Ned later says of her 'All the Florence Nightingales in the world/Would not make another like our sister.' Ned gets to talk to J F Archibald, legendary founder of the Bulletin - what a conversation that would have been, had it occurred!

Clow ungenerously puts Fitzpatrick in gaol for the course of the Outbreak. Ned is, however, generous to Fitzpatrick on the morning of his execution and says to his mother: 'We won't speak of him at present mother/ Poor fellow! He's kicked his heels in gaol since.' However, Ned is a lot less generous to Jim, who apparently has let him down in not turning up at Glenrowan: 'Our blasted Jim - on whom I depended/Did not turn up until I was captured/In every war there is a laggard wretch/With James in command he will not fetch.' Ned is strolling through the prison gardens with his mother, the prison governor and three warders and he picks some flowers and presents them to his mother: 'Ah mother! Let me present thee a bouquet/Make thy heart like a lassy's once again.' I would have loved to have seen the faces of Fitzpatrick, Jim, and the 'lassy' all very much alive in 1919, reading those words, though from what Fitzpatrick said in the Cookson interviews he seemed used to being bucketed on stage.

Some of the characters do seem to be speaking in ways that the real life ones never would have. McIntyre reassures a captured Ned: 'True Curnow played a most ignoble part/which contributed nothing to thy fall/the break in line the pilot would have found.' The dying Judge Barry sees a vision of the now deceased Ned bearing a placard with the words 'You and I will meet over yonder/and much sooner than you think.' So far so good, but the letters are of fire and Barry screams to his maid: 'My brain's blazing with flaming centipeds [sic]/Arranged in letters like words of him/who in gaol suffered for his crimes this day.'

An interesting sub-plot that is never developed comes when Steve and Joe discuss turning themselves in and giving Queen's evidence. Steve says, awkwardly: 'My brother suggested that evidence/of our female majesty I should turn.' Ned and Dan overhear them and decide that Dan should keep an eye on Joe and Ned should pair with Steve to monitor the situation. Did someone just say something about honour among thieves? Nothing comes of this sub-plot, however, perhaps because Clow realised that to go further might make his narrative accord less with history.

The play is not without some powerful bits, even if here the poetry is not particularly elegant. Steve and Dan are both rendered temporarily unconscious in the siege but when Steve revives he yells to Dan: 'Wake up quickly! Why we're in hell/All that's blazing is blazing well.' McIntyre describes Ned as 'A bushman in a warlike statue/With his face enclosed in iron plate/Colonial who with metal wrought/what strange foreboding state of thought.' Such a phrase could also be applied to the mind of Robitt Jon Clow, who produced this curious little item. It's easy to knock the historical inaccuracies, the awkward phraseology, the melodrama (remember, the unvarnished story of the Kellys was pretty damn melodramatic) and the odd behaviour of the characters, but it was a fun item to read, even if it does not add much to our understanding of the Kelly story.

Ned Kelly and Poison Pen Letters? [Sharon Hollingsworth]

Back in 1880 when Ned Kelly was in the Old Melbourne Gaol awaiting execution the police and prison officials were taking all precautions necessary to prevent him from cheating the hangman. Even a concerned member of the public weighed in with his expertise.

In a letter forwarded to Capt. Standish (found at the PROV) from the Inspector's Office and then forwarded on to John Castieau (the governor of the Old Melbourne Gaol) there were warnings about the different ways that poison might be smuggled into the cell where Ned Kelly was imprisoned.

The letter starts out:

This afternoon a Gentleman whose name I could not ascertain but I believe belongs to the medical profession informed me that the greatest of care must be taken to protect "Kelly" charged with murder from obtaining poison.

He states during several years travelling on the Continent and other parts of the world he became thoroughly conversant with the use and disuse of poisons and that it can be delivered in a variety of ways without the least suspicion of discovery.

[He went on to discuss various ways that poison might be transferred to Ned..such as from a kiss, from food..and also]

"in having his linen impregnated"

"in soft paper saturated with poison and then dried"

"in the buttons of a coat or drawers where the outside cover can be taken off, the cavity filled up, and then recovered"

"the writing in a letter written with a solution of poison"

[there was more of the letter where he said he was sure every care was being taken by the authorities to prevent Ned getting poison... etc..]




Castieau's reply to Standish re the forwarded letter was thus:

"Returned with thanks to Captain Standish. The ingenious means of conveying poison that are spoken of were not unknown to me. Every care is being taken to prevent any accident happening to Kelly. I feel however convinced that as far as the prisoner is concerned he has at present no intention of doing violence to himself."

What is in the above letter about poison being possibly hidden inside buttons or linen impregnated with poison solution might explain this disturbing bit of information from J.J. Kenneally's "The Complete Inner History of the Kelly Gang" :

"Ned Kelly was still suffering from the effect of his wounds, but to such an extent had official callousness developed that his sister, Mrs. Skillion, was not permitted to see him. She had been informed that Ned was in need of a change of underclothing; and promptly purchased what was required, but the Beechworth Gaol authorities would not allow the clothes to be given to Ned Kelly. Mrs. Skillion then offered to go with one of the gaol officials and make similar purchases again, and suggested that the officials should take the clothes from the shop, and that she would not do so much as touch the articles purchased. Even this offer was refused, and Ned Kelly, on trial for his life and suffering from the effects of his wounds, was denied a change of underclothing by the gaol authorities."

"Mr David Gaunson, who defended Ned Kelly at his trial, was permitted to have an interview with him in the Beechworth Gaol, in the presence of gaol officials. In the interview Ned Kelly said: “I can depend my life on my sister, Mrs. Skillion. I have been kept here like a wild beast. If they were afraid to let anyone come near me, they might have kept at a distance and watched; but it seems to me to be unjust, when I am on trial for my life, to refuse to allow those I put confidence in to come with in cooee of me. Why, they won’t so much as let me have a change of clothes brought in!"

And what about him borrowing Gaunson's coat for court?

The parts about the possibility of saturated paper and letters being written in "poison pen" makes me wonder if Ned Kelly was ever allowed to read or handle any mail addressed to him at the gaol? Maybe if he was not allowed to handle it then perhaps a warder was allowed to read some of it to him?

Photo courtesy of Joe Dipisa  (www.kellyhauntstours.com.au)

 John Castieau allegedly souvenired some of the letters sent to Ned at the gaol and passed them down to his own son, Godfrey Cass (a stage name), who portrayed Ned Kelly in several of the Kelly Gang films.

Dubious Kelly Relics: Thomas Curnow's Signal Lamp and Ned Kelly's Quill Pen [Sharon Hollingsworth]

(Updated April 8)

There have been many dubious Kelly Gang relics floating around through the years but I have just read about some I had not heard of before.

It seems that Western Australia was rife with relics of the siege as concerns Glenrowan schoolmaster Thomas Curnow and railway guard Frank Bell.

From the Sunday Times of Aug. 31, 1919

"A relic of the Kelly Gang is in Perth in the possession of Actor-Manager Ted Cole. It was given him by Guard Bell in charge of the train the Kellys planned to capsize. The said souvenir is a large red pocket handkerchief used by Schoolmaster Curnow over an ordinary candle lamp to stop the police special."

The article went on to relate how Curnow got a hold of a lamp and covered it with a red handkerchief to stop the train. (Don't worry, I am going to be debunking all this in a second!)

Then we read again in the paper (18 years later) where railway guard (Frank) Bell had passed down a relic to his son, also named Frank Bell who sent a photo of it to his son, also named Frank Bell (!?). What was it? Glad you asked! It was the actual "lamp" used by Curnow to stop the train!

From that same article in the Sunday Times of Oct. 3, 1937,  it spoke of train guard Bell:

"..whose quick eye it was that sighted the red handkerchief covered lamp waved by schoolmaster Curnow at Glenrowan and so stopped the train containing about 100 police troopers and their horses.....the historic lamp was souvenired by Bell during the subsequent Battle of Glenrowan."
 

Then, there was yet another article concerning Curnow...

From the Sunday Times of Aug. 10, 1947 in an article called "W.A. Man's Relic of Kelly Gang's Last Stand" it tells of a 77 yr old man whose family knew Curnow post-Glenrowan. Curnow gave the family a piece of the scarf he used to stop the train which this man still had in his possession. However, this gentleman relates what Curnow told him and his family and much of it was oh-so-wrong or maybe just mis-remembered? Stuff like how Curnow was riding to get a doctor when he saw Dan and Steve forcing railway workers to pull up the line and how he pleaded to be let go and they allowed him to proceed and he then went down the line where he heard the train coming and took off his own scarf and wrapped it around a signal lamp.

Ok, let's break this all down. Even though there was an illustration for contemporary newspapers (as well as reports) of Curnow using a lantern to stop the train, he himself testified that:

"I quietly prepared everything, including the red llama scarf, candle and matches..."

[later after hearing the train coming]

"I immediately caught up the candle, scarf, and matches and ran down the line to meet the train. I ran on until I got to where I could see straight before me some distance along the line, and where those in the train would be able to see the danger signal. I then lit the candle and held it behind the red scarf."

BAM! There it is!!!

If you think about it, it made more sense from a security standpoint to have a candle possibly stuck down in his pocket or carried close to his body while in transit down the railway line rather than running the risk of being caught out carrying even an unlit lamp/lantern by a member of the gang or one of their sympathisers. That (to mix metaphors) would have rung an alarm bell, the gig would have been up, and the hammer would have dropped!

In "Last of the Bushrangers" Superintendent Francis Hare related that:


"It afterwards turned out the man was Mr. Curnow, the local schoolmaster, who, having no lamp by which to stop the train, got a red scarf and held a candle behind it when he heard the train approaching, but, having left his wife alone, he hurried back for fear some of the gang might see him. After the guard of the pilot had related this story to me...."

So we see that there was no lantern or lamp nor red handkerchief. Perhaps the chap with the bit of scarf does (or rather did) have a true relic despite his error filled narrative? Concerning the earlier narrative, there were not 100 police troopers on the special train, there were around a couple dozen people in total on the train including police, black trackers, newspapermen, O'Connor's wife and her sister, plus a civilian volunteer.


Ok, let's pick apart the earlier bit with the W.A. man with the relic. Steve Hart was with the railway workers for the lifting of the rails, Dan was not. Curnow was not on the way to get a doctor in the middle of the night when he met the Kellys. He met them later on in the day while out buggy riding with his family. The doctor part might have come from where Curnow testified about how he wanted to get his wife, baby and sister to safety at his mother-in-law's place after Ned let them leave the Inn but he was worried about the gang checking up on them at his home so he left a note saying his sister was ill and they went for medicine (however his wife was restless and upset so they went back to the house..this was before the stopping of the train). He did not use his own scarf, he used his sister's and we know it was not a signal lamp, it was a candle!

 How can they get so much so wrong in these reminiscences?

Talking about getting stuff wrong, read on to the second instance of somewhat dubious relics I am relating here. For that we go back to Victoria.


There was this in the Barrier Miner, July 29, 1924

NED KELLY'S PEN FOUND. 
 
"Workmen engaged in dismantling the interior of the Melbourne Gaol yesterday found enclosed in an envelope a quill pen used by Ned Kelly, the outlaw, before his execution in 1880. On the envelope were the words, "Ned Kelly's pen." The initials of Mr. J. B. Castieau, who was the governor of the gaol at the time, were also on the envelope."

Ok, this is a long shot but is a possibility. But as I note below, Ned was unable to write anything other than signing an X due to his damaged arm, so why would he have a pen?

Then a dozen years later there was another mention of Ned's quill pen in the papers.

 In the Sunday Times of May 2, 1937 there was an article entitled Ned Kelly's Quill Pen. In the article it related about publicans, Mr. and Mrs. Muldoon, of a Melbourne tavern who had been offered a relic for sale by Jerry the builder and his brother which was "the pen Ned Kelly wrote his last letter on earth with."

When asked whom Ned wrote to with it the reply was

 "Why, to his sainted mother, it was his last message to her who loved him. And everybody knows where he got the ink..."

He went on to say:

 "I got the story from an old ex-warden of the gaol. He had part charge of Ned and worked in the quill-pen to help him in sending out a message to his poor lonely widowed mother-away up in the country where Ned was captured."...."Well, then," he continued, handling the relic reverently as if it were a fragment from sacred Jerusalem, or a chip from Caesar's tomb, 'Ned tore a linen pocket from his prison jacket to act as note paper, opened a small vein in his arm and used the blood to write a short message to his mother. That's his own life-blood you see on the quill....."I got to know the son of a long ago prisoner who cleaned the cell out after Ned's execution. He told me how his dad had found the quill-pen in the cell where it had been laid down after the condemned man had written his message. He never thought it of any value till I accidentally heard of it and bought it from him for a mere trifle...."

The tavern owners, convinced it was the real deal, purchased it off him.

Then to everyone's consternation:

"A week later half a dozen elderly Hibernian ladies, excited and fuming, alighted from a Fitzroy tram at the corner nearest to what is left of the old Melbourne Gaol. Each had a Ned Kelly quill-pen, all old and crusted with the bushranger's blood."


These ladies along with a local parish priest traced the seller's lodgings and come to find out he had absconded. The landlady told them that:


"About a fortnight ago, Jerry and his brother had brought home from the Melbourne market a live goose..."

You can guess the rest of the story! The goose was cooked (as were the geese of the gullible buyers!) and the feathers were stripped, and the quills, well, you know what became of those!

Quite a silly tale that should never have been if they knew their Kelly story. Ned was unable to write at all while in gaol, only being able to sign an X due to his injured arm and his mother was in the same gaol with him at the time not up in the Kelly country where he was captured!

In closing, there was this bit re the pen from earlier in the newspaper article that I saved till last:


"It's a wonder the police let him have anything at all," said Mrs. Muldoon, whose opinion of the Law that hanged poor Ned was not of a very complimentary nature.

"They tried not to...They were afraid poison might be worked in so they had a special watch on him day and night. They couldn't even trust the regular warders."

That last bit there is a good segue to my next blog posting entitled "Ned Kelly and Poison Pen Letters?" Stay tuned for that!

Who escorted Mrs. Devine to the Jerilderie courthouse? [Sharon Hollingsworth]

Mary Devine in later life (courtesy of Trove)

In an earlier blog post called   "For Jerilderie's Constable Devine life after the Kelly Gang's visit was anything but divine! I detailed what happened to Sr. Constable George Devine during the Kelly Gang raid and what happened to him afterward when he had to endure taunts and jests from the public for those events. In this posting I detail about his wife, Mrs. (Mary) Devine, and her dealings with the gang.

Just prior to the Kelly Gang's visit Mrs. Devine had a prophetic dream.

According to the West Coast Times of February 27, 1879:

It was half past eleven o'clock, and a clear fine night. Mrs. Devine awoke out of a troubled sleep and told her husband, in a state of alarm, that she had dreamt she had seen the Kellys crawling along the police fence, that he (Devine) and Richards were on the other side and did not know that the Kellys were near them. She imagined that the Kellys were taking aim at her husband and his companion with their firearms, and she was unable to warn them of the danger.

But how were any of them to know that the dream was about to become reality..the Kellys showed up soon after!

At the time of the Kelly Gang's visit Mrs. Devine had three children (according to Corfield) and was pregnant with a fourth.
 She was still in her night-gown when Ned Kelly roused her husband and Constable Richards up and then bailed them up. When Ned threatened to shoot Constable Devine (according to Peter Dunne, telegraph operator)  "Mrs. Devine, on her knees, begged for him not to do so, and he apparently acceded to her request, saying he would have done so but for her." She was assured that no harm would come to her husband or family if she would not raise the alarm to anyone for the duration of their stay.

She then had to show them around the place so they could confiscate all of the weapons and ammunition. She also prepared food for them at Ned's request.

Constable Devine was worried about Ned "interfering with his wife" and Ned was quite offended and said that he had never offered offense to any woman and that she would be safe.

In Ian Jones's "Ned Kelly: A Short Life" he relates instances of Mrs. Devine's dealings as concerns the Kellys as told in interviews with her granddaughter a century later. One instance was where Ned Kelly himself helped Mrs. Devine to empty a tub of water her children had been bathed in earlier that evening. He said she should not try to do it "in her condition." Jones goes on to relate that Mrs. Devine said of Ned that he was "the kindest man she ever met."

The gang settled in for the night, taking turns sleeping and standing guard.

From Rev Gribble's article in Leisure Time (1895)

During the night it was arranged that the whole company should occupy the parlour of the barracks. The night being excessively hot, the sergeant's wife begged for a breath of air, and, feeling faint, said she should scream if the door was not opened. Steve Hart, raising his revolver at her, threatened to shoot her if she did not keep quiet. She replied, "Little do mothers know what they are rearing their children for!" "I would shoot my own mother," was the savage retort, "if she didn't do as I told her!"

But. I had read elsewhere where she and the children were allowed to sleep in the bedroom apart from the others.

The next morning was Sunday and Mrs. Devine always went over to the courthouse across the road to prepare the place for Mass for the visiting priest (it was on rotation between two priests, Father Slattery and Father Kiely, that particular Sunday was Father Kiely's turn).
Ned decided that she best stick to her routine, as her missing doing her duty there would draw questions and visitors. Here is where it gets sticky. Those who were in Jerilderie and actually knew the parties involved (schoolteacher William Elliott and Rev. Gribble) both avow that it was Dan Kelly who escorted her over and helped her clean up and place flowers. I tend to believe it was Dan. However, there are other reports, red herrings if you will, that throw us off that scent!

Some of the early newspaper articles just say "Kelly" escorted her. I suppose it depends on who read what as to what is told in books. Constable Thomas McIntyre in his narrative has that it was Ned. Hare and Chomley (who most assuredly had read Hare's book) both say it was Joe Byrne who went with her, as did Frank Clune. Ian Jones has that it was Dan Kelly as did Max Brown and John Molony. Very telling that no one ever said it was Steve Hart!


It is astonishing to me what Joseph Ashmead in his account had to say. I can only shake my head in disbelief! He not only has Mrs. Devine being called Mrs. Ryan, but has Ned helping her at the courthouse and then has Ned and Joe attending Mass with her and the other trooper's wife from the police station (remember, Richards was unmarried)! Even more unbelievable, he also had about the time on a ship to London when he met Father O'Dwyer(!!!!) who claimed he was the one who held the service that Sunday in Jerilderie and that he noticed two strong men in the front with the wives of the police that he later realised were Ned Kelly and Joe Byrne! What codswallop and pig-swill! Yet, even a blind hog finds an acorn every now and then, so we should not always (but in this case we can) dismiss Ashmead totally out of hand!

And here is something else as concerns this episode from the Sunday Times (Perth) May 23, 1926 wherein George Devine was being taunted in later years:

"...he got a plentiful though untruthful reminder that Ned Kelly had taken his (Devine's) wife to a ball at Jerilderie and similar yarns more or less mangled, untrue and improbable."

How did a visit to the courthouse to set up for Mass turn into a visit to a gala ball?


That same day, just after lunch time, newspaper editor Samuel Gill (in search of news to print) went by the police station to chat with Constable Devine to see what was going on with the four new recruits seen around town. Mrs Devine cryptically told him "I cannot tell you anything. Run, for your life is in danger!"

That set in motion events that led to him alerting others and them entering the bank as the Kellys were there for the holdup with him narrowly escaping to the chagrin of Ned who wanted Gill to print copies of  the Jerilderie letter for him! Whew! As an aside, during the time the Kellys were there Ned Kelly read some of his Jerilderie letter to Mrs. Devine but she could remember none of it two days later.

After the robbery when the gang were ready to leave town they left constables Devine and Richards and two telegraph-men locked up. He gave the key to Mrs. Devine and  he told her to not let them out until half past 7 or that he would "burn the house down over her and her children's heads" if she or anyone else let them out before that time. After the Kellys left others rushed over to the police station to free the prisoners but Mrs. Devine steadfastly refused to open the door or give them the key. Her husband and the others had to wait about an hour and a half before the time Ned appointed for them to be released. Of course, she was just protecting her husband as she did not wish for him to pursue the Kellys and possibly get killed. Ned had taken the police horses and all their guns and ammo and even if they could have borrowed some of each by the time they were released the gang were well away.

The Devines stayed on in Jerilderie for a couple of more years, much later they wound up living in West Australia where Mrs. Devine outlived her husband by 6 years dying in September of 1932.

UPDATE- new papers are being added all the time at trove and one from 1926 in which Mrs Devine says it was STEVE HART who escorted her has come online. My goodness! Can it be true? https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/83644047

For Jerilderie's Constable Devine life after the Kelly Gang's visit was anything but divine! [Sharon Hollingsworth]

Senior-Constable George Devine, along with Constable Henry Richards, were victimized by the Kelly Gang in Jerilderie in February of 1879. Both constables were locked in their own cells  ("reversing the proper order of things by trapping the traps" as wryly pointed out by Thomas McIntyre) as the Kellys took up residence in the police station using their uniforms to pass themselves off as new recruits passing through on the hunt for the Kelly Gang. (An ingenious disguise!) All the while they were getting ready to rob the local bank.

Ned had let out Constable Richards for a while to walk around the town with some of them as they did a reconnaissance. He did not let out Devine, though. In "The Complete Inner History of the Kelly Gang" J.J. Kenneally said of Devine: "He was a high spirited man, and was generally regarded as a man who would rather fight than run. It was because the Kellys recognised his courage that they did not take him out of the cell to patrol the town. On the other hand, Constable Richards was much more docile, and would 'go quietly' rather than take risks."
As an aside, I have read that Richards, who was engaged to a certain young lady at time of the raid, had to endure the indignity of her breaking off the engagement in the aftermath of events since he had "not done his duty"! My friend Greg Young (after I let him have a peek at the rough draft of this article) quipped:  "Seems that Richards was given the white feather by his intended!"

In [I Am] Ned Kelly, John Molony says of Devine: "He never recovered from the dreadful indignity of incarceration in his own lock-up, and the taunts of cowardice and ineptitude unjustly levelled by many at him, as well as at the townsmen of Jerilderie, rankled deeply."

George Devine around the time of the Kelly's visit. (courtesy of Trove)

Devine eventually left Jerilderie and after being posted to other towns in NSW, wound up in Western Australia where he worked as a race course detective. But it seems that he could not run from notoriety as it was permanently attached to him thanks to Ned Kelly.  Before that fateful life-changing day in February 1879 Devine had been attributed as boasting that "if he met the Kellys, they would remember it." Seems after that day he was to be the one to never forget, nor would anyone let him if he tried (much like McIntyre and the wombat hole!).



To illustrate, there was this interesting bit from the Sunday Times (Perth) from August 24, 1919:


There is one man who cordially hates the name of Ned Kelly, his associates, and all that was and is his. The said-hater is a racecourse official who, in the dear, dead days of long ago had an experience with Ned and his gang that rankles in his memory even after over 39 years. The usual ordinary public, especially the portion not old enough to know first hand, all fondly imagine that the said official was one of the constables who, when the police spy and traitor Aaron Sherritt was shot, promptly got under the bed. Not so, the now racecourse man having been on duty in another State. At the Perth courses, where the average gun hoodlum is barred from admittance to the course by the said official, they never fail to ask how he liked Ned Kelly, what it was Ned Kelly did to him, and how he liked being locked up in his own cell, and sundry other sarcasms too poignant for print. It's wonderful what a marvellously rotten memory pests have for half-truths and untruths, and what a blank is their mind when the real episodes are called in to question.

Even as early as 1909 there were reports of the public hounding him as being one of the four from Sherritt's hut! In the Sunday Times of October 24, 1920 there was a blurb saying "For the five-hundredth time, no, it was NOT Sergeant Devine (now of Perth) who was in Aaron Sherritt's hut..." But it seems that a few realised he was not one of those (thus the "how did he like being locked in his own cell" bits), but that still served them well as far as baiting him!

It was said that "At one time Devine used to resent and threaten libel and slander actions, contempt of constabulary, etc., but later on he accepted the gradually dwindling jibes philosophically and with an outwardly calm demeanor."


It seems that in his off time Devine attended Kelly Gang themed plays and films when they were in town. In the Sunday Times, August 24, 1924 it stated that:



"The most disgusted man after seeing the Kelly Gang picture was ex-Sergeant Devine, who was in charge of Jerilderie when the gang swooped down there. Devine's lively recollections of Ned and his three mates are not in accord with the film at present here, and he deeply resents the imputation therein."




That is odd that he attended such events as Kenneally said that

"The feelings of Senior-Constable Devine were so grievously wounded by the indignity of being locked up in his own prison cell at Jerilderie that he disliked to hear any reference to the Kelly Gang and their visit to Jerilderie."

I suppose it was inevitable that Devine heard the hue and cry of the hunters (or hound-ers?) up until his death in May of 1926 at age 79.

The Sunday Times of May 23, 1926 said:


 Only two days before he was laid to rest in Karrakatta, he was walking Barrack-street and accosted a member of the staff of this journal cheerily enough. Though looking very shaky, he greeted the scribe, whom he well knew, and made a direct unsought reference to a long-made promise to give the said scribe a few stories of his early life, including unpublished details of the Jerilderie stick-up. Within half a dozen hours of that meeting in Barrack-street he had passed away and within 48 hours had been borne to his long resting place.

It is a shame that he did not live to tell those tales!

Images of Devine's grave. (courtesy of Michael Ball)

You will remember that Ned Kelly had made a souvenir of Constable Devine's revolver at Jerilderie and that he had it with him at the siege of Glenrowan. It is the gun that Jesse Dowsett later souvenired. Ned also took Devine's and Richards's police horses which were later found abandoned. There was something else he took, too. It was reported that Jim Kelly in later years found a police trooper's uniform at the old homestead (which was assumed to have come from Jerilderie) and when he asked a friend what he should do with it he was advised to burn it!

Ned took all those souvenirs, but did you know that Devine wound up with a souvenir of Ned's, too?

According to the Sunday Times Aug 24, 1924:

Until a few years ago the said Devine had a rare souvenir of Ned Kelly, he having been down at Spencer-street when the famous armor arrived. Said souvenir was a handkerchief that on being rubbed on the still-stained mouldboard plate irons, showed spots and streaks of rust and blood, the latter being that of the famous outlaw himself. In a fire that occurred a few years ago in Perth he lost not only that relic, but a clothes line with which the almost equally notorious Captain Moonlight was tied when captured at Wantabadgery.



The part that Devine's wife Mary played in the proceedings at Jerilderie will be covered in a future blog posting.

Article Alert: Visit of Irish Australian Exhibition to Ireland Ditched

From Google Alerts:

Well, it seems that the "Not Just Ned" Irish exhibition currently on in Canberra is NOT going to Dublin afterall!

From the article:

National Museum of Australia director Andrew Sayers, in a letter to the Irish Echo, said that while it had been hoped that a version of the exhibition be brought to Ireland, “that is sadly no longer possible”.

The Irish Echo understands that Ireland’s current economic woes is one of several reasons blamed for the decision.

http://www.irishecho.com.au/2011/03/23/visit-of-irish-australian-exhibition-to-ireland-ditched/8250


As I had noted in an earlier post, Ned's armour was not going to be included anyway! Not sure if they had planned to send any of the other suits of armour or not. Now the point is moot!

If anything changes between now and then I will keep you posted! 

Ned Kelly's links with classic British comedy [Brian Stevenson]

The short and turbulent life of Ned Kelly has been portrayed many times on the stage, sometimes memorably, sometimes less so. A case in point was a play Ned Kelly, almost certainly written by James Clancy, although the performance review that I found referred to him as John Clancy.

The production of Mr Clancy's play, at the Theatre Royal, Stratford, London, would have been a memorable occasion, perhaps not for the play itself, but for playgoers of a certain vintage with an interest in British TV comedy.

As the first person, apparently, to comment online on the relationship between Inspector Henry Pewtress, who searched for the three bodies at Stringybark Creek and his grandson, Ballard Berkeley, the dotty and lovable Major Gowen on Fawlty Towers, my credentials on connections between the Kelly Gang and classic British television comedy are assured. (But I want to add to them in this blog post anyway.)

Let's start with Ned. He was played by, of all people, Harry H Corbett, who many of us will remember as the unassertive son, Harold Steptoe, always engaged in a battle of wits with his hideous, manipulating and terrible old Dad, played by Wilfred Brambell in the series about the junk shop owners, Steptoe and Son. (It was reconfigured in the States as Sanford and Son.) Harry added the H to his name to avoid confusion with the children's television puppeteer, Harry Corbett, who was the manipulator of the politically incorrectly named little bear, Sooty for many years. (It didn't work because it was only when I wanted to do research for this post that I realised that they were two different people.)

Anyway, Harry H did a commendable job! The review in the London Times for 24 May 1960 singled out young Harold - sorry, Ned - as 'a dashingly heoric figure' whose performance 'nicely suggests the slow conversion of an egotism which ends by convincing the outlaw that he is destined to take over the government of Australia in the name of the common people.' Sounds as if the reviewer picked up some of the subtleties, and Ned's monomaniacal and delusional ambitions certainly translate better to the stage when they are not restricted to northeastern Victoria!

Harry H was joined on the stage by Brian Murphy, who seems to have dual roles, the confirmed one as Ben Gould, and another one not listed in the cast. The reviewer again: 'Mr Brian Murphy has several delightful turns on his own, sometimes as an inept police sergeant and sometimes as a philosophic linesman in the telegraph service.' Sergeant Kennedy is not listed in the dramatis personae, so perhaps Brian Murphy played him as well. I didn't know that Ben worked as a linesman either. We can only wonder at why the playwright saw fit to include Ben, a comparatively peripheral character in our saga, and left out meaty roles like Francis Hare, Frederick Standish, Alexander Fitzpatrick, Sergeant Steele, Thomas Curnow and many others. (Constable Gomer Evans - whoever that was - got a part in the play, though.) Brian Murphy, of course, played the henpecked and easygoing George Roper in the sitcom 'George and Mildred.' No sign of Yootha Joyce (ie, Mildred) on the cast list though.

The third actor from classic British comedy had two roles listed. Both characters that he played were Irish, but otherwise the pair had little in common: Pat Quinn and Constable MacIntyre. We are not told which Pat Quinn was portrayed, and it is interesting that he was in the play when all members of the prolific and vital family of Lloyd were left out. It is hard to think of Grant playing either when we remember the toothsome and lecherous Jack Harper from 'On the Buses', who never seemed to stop chasing clippies (female bus conductors) except for when he was laughing with his mate Stan Butler (played by Reg Varney, incidentally the first person ever to use an automated teller machine) and at the pair's nemesis, Inspector Blake (played by Stephen Lewis.)

Despite its stellar cast - OK, a cast that would be considered stellar in the future - the play does not seem to have impressed the reviewer. The improvisation led to 'a great deal of mumbling [which had] the effect of stretching out a not very eventful action to a length of exactly three hours.' The music did not help either: 'There are many Irish jigs and there are also songs to help the story along, but ... all the songs seem to be variants on 'The Wild Colonial Boy', and none of them is particularly well sung.' One is left with the impression that the evening was not a memorable one, but a time traveller might enjoy seeing Harry H Corbett, Brian Murphy and Bob Grant all on the same stage and playing characters that were nothing like the personages for which they would be so fondly remembered.

Brian Murphy is still around, having survived his television wife, Yootha Joyce, for over thirty years. But Harry H Corbett left us early, dying in 1982 at only 57. Bob Grant's ending was perhaps even more sad. Typecast as the happy-go-lucky Jack Harper, his lack of employment opportunities thenceforth sent him into bouts of depression, and he tried to commit suicide on at least one occasion. In 2003 he was found dead in his home after taking his own life. He was 71.

As for the play, I don't think that you can read it anywhere. I looked for a copy everywhere I could think of, but no luck, and my dear friend, co-blogger and indefatigable researcher Sharon could do no better than find a copy of the program for sale at an extortionate price. The legend and the name lives on, though some of its manifestations were ephemeral. As someone famous might have said, such is life.

The Glenrowan Inn's Mrs. Ann Jones and her Policeman Son [Sharon Hollingsworth]

Recently I was doing some Kelly Gang research along a certain avenue at the Trove historical newspapers site and turned a "cyber corner" (or turned a "virtual page"?) and ran right into Mrs. Ann Jones's policeman son!

If you will remember, for the "Kelly Gang From Within" series in the Sydney Sun (published in 1911) B.W. Cookson conducted interviews in 1910 and one of those whom he interviewed was Mrs. Ann Jones of the Glenrowan Inn. In the interview she stated that:

"I have four children living. My son Owen is in West Australia; Terry is a policeman in the West; Headington is a farmer over there; and Tom is a schoolmaster somewhere in New South Wales."

In Justin Corfield's "Ned Kelly Encyclopaedia" the Ann Jones entry states that she had 14 children and listed eight of them saying at the end of the list that there were "six others."

Amongst those names in Corfield I noted that "Terry" was not listed (nor any variation thereof).  Maybe he was one of the other six? Or maybe, just maybe, Cookson misunderstood her and instead of Terry, thought she said another name? Or maybe someone down the line transcribed his notes wrong or perhaps it was typeset wrong?  Remember that Mrs. Jones was very sick at the time of Cookson's interview and prone to coughing fits (and she died not long afterward). Maybe she was hard to understand at times?

Bear with me as I lay out evidence that perhaps Mrs. Jones's policeman son, instead of being Terry Jones, was maybe one of those actually listed in Corfield.

Ann had a son named Jeremiah who was born in 1874 (according to Corfield). He was one of four of her young sons who were locked in the Inn by Ned Kelly while the rails were being lifted prior to the siege of Glenrowan.

From the Sunday Times (Perth)  May 9, 1937

..it is of interest to know that one of the first to see Ned in his armor was the late Police Sergeant Jerry Jones of Merredin. When a toddler J.J.'s mother was the proprietress of the famous Glenrowan Arms, the hotel around which the battle between the police and the bushrangers raged and from which the widowed Mrs. Jones and her small family and a lot of non-combatants emerged under a flag of truce. But. in spite of that truce, the five-year-old son of Mrs. Jones, a brother to Jerry, was shot dead by a stray bullet fired from no one could exactly tell where. Jerry himself well recalled that before the police train came along to be stopped by by school-master Curnow waving a lamp with a red handkerchief around it, the gang - Dan Kelly, Steve Hart, and Joe Byrne - drank deep and heartily at Mrs. Jones' bar, played hop, step and a jump; rope quoits; and at the order of Ned, who came there several times and went away to put on his armor, paid up for the drinks to a penny.


[Ok, there are a few errors in the account, such as the hotel is called the Glenrowan Inn, not the Glenrowan Arms..Mrs. Jones was not a widow at the time...and the young man killed was 13, not 5...also, didn't Curnow himself say that he used a candle not a lamp? But we digress...]


Looking in other news articles I found information about Constable Jerry Jones of Perth doing his duty around the turn of the nineteenth into the twentieth century. I am not exactly sure what year he began his career (he was listed on the page of officers at the WA Police Historical Society website who began their career pre-1898. 1898 being the year that numbers were begun to be assigned to police), but it seems that he did indeed die with his boots on!

July 6, 1932

Sgt. Jones, officer-in-charge at the Merredin police station died suddenly from heart failure on the morning of June 29. He was 58 years of age and had been in charge of the station three years.

Dying in 1932 and being 58 years old fits in with the birth date of 1874 for Jeremiah Jones.

Another paper dated July 24, 1932 had this:

The death of Police-Sergeant "Jerry" Jones, of Merredin, removes another link from the story of the capture of the Kelly Gang In June, 1880. The mother of the late JJ was Mrs. Jones, the landlady of the hotel at Glenrowan, where the final battle took place, and where Ned Kelly, the only one of the gang alive, was taken prisoner. The late Sergeant Jones was probably among the remaining few to have seen Ned Kelly.


The website for the WA Police Historical Society has a grave listing for policeman Jeremiah John Jones in Merredin Cemetery.

I looked under the officers lists there and there was a T. E. Jones who joined long before Jeremiah, but how likely would it be that he was named Terry and was the son of Ann Jones in light of the fact that Jeremiah/Jerry was known to others as being the one in question and had been quoted recalling the siege? It is unlikely that so many would have been mislead and also the real one or his relations would have written to the papers protesting!

 I looked all over the net and in all the Kelly books I have and modern day articles up to this point that I have access to and no one else has publicly come up with the "Jerry is Terry" theory. Am I correct in this?
 If so, it would seem that just one letter of the alphabet sometimes makes all the difference in the world to researchers!

As an aside, I feel utterly compelled to mention about Ned Kelly's half-brother Jack King (who went by the Kelly name) who was a policeman out in WA from March 1906 until April 1908. If I did not bring it up I am sure someone else would surely have reminded me of the omission!

We can only wonder if Jack and Jerry ever crossed paths!

St. Patrick's Day is on the way! [Sharon Hollingsworth]

Raise your glass! Three cheers for the Irish!

This week is the opening of the "Not Just Ned: Irish in Australia" exhibition at the National Museum in Canberra. One of my friends hopes to go see it before it closes in July and has promised to do a guest blog about it if he does. I am looking forward to that!


Also, I found the following Ned Kelly/St. Patrick's Day tie-in article at the Trove/NLA historical newspaper site:


The Mercury

March 8, 1879


The latest freak of Mr. Edward Kelly (observes the Riverine Herald), is a very rich one, and fully maintains his character of being possessed of the very largest amount of impudence. In a mining centre, within the boundaries of the electorate of Rodney, a grand fete is to be held on St. Patrick's Day next. In this town resides one who is said to be acquainted with the Kelly and Quinn families, and last week he received a letter from Ned Kelly, enclosing a £5 note towards the funds for the demonstration on St. Patrick's Day, the recipient averring that Kelly naively states that the bank note was a portion of the plunder annexed at Jerilderie. The receiver of the money says it is not impossible that the Kellys will form a portion of the concourse at the fete.

Kelly, by Eric Lambert - a troubled man writes about a troubled man [Brian Stevenson]

Brian McDonald's judgment was succinct on the novel, Kelly, by Eric Lambert: 'Not for research.' Published nearly fifty years ago, the work has unarguably been overshadowed by the novels of Peter Carey and Robert Drewe, but it is a powerful enough work on its own, and an entertaining read.



There are plenty of historical errors for the purists to stress over, but the work does not purport to be anything but a novel so Lambert does not have a case to answer. It matters little that Stringybark Creek is fought on 3 July, Ned rescues a grown man and not a boy from drowning, there seems to be a long period of time between the death of Aaron Sherritt and Glenrowan, and that Helen [sic] Jones, daughter of Anne Jones, dies in the siege. The gathering of traps, including Fitzpatrick, from Kelly's past to confront him at Glenrowan, is an effective touch, and it is to Fitzpatrick that the final insult, kicking the captured Kelly when he is down, is left. Fitzpatrick is described as 'merely unlovely' and, we are told, watching him was 'like seeing a skin lifted to reveal malignancy.'



The use made of some of the real characters in the drama is intriguing. Curnow is not the quiet and outwardly compliant schoolteacher, but an argumentative man who is caught trying to sneak away from the siege, but despite a blow on the head from Steve, tries and succeeds the second time. In a bizarre touch, his son has died in a train accident. Mary Miller, who as far as we know did not have a large part in the real life drama, is Ned's lover, friend and confidant. Squatter Angus McBean, who in real life was relieved of his watch by Harry Power, is a diarist and tells of nocturnal visits from the fugitive Kelly, where among other things, Kelly astonishes him with his take on the role of the Upper House or Legislative Council in the colonial Parliament: 'your [Legislative] council is Queen Victoria's cork.' Surprisingly, the fictionalised Ned informs McBean that he is 'quite a good speller' !



The Gang and their associates pretty well conform to their stereotypes. Dan is the kid brother. Joe is a sensitive soul, bursting into tears for the sake of the women and children when the inn is besieged, and reminding Ned after one of his (Ned's) tirades, 'in a voice as soft as a girl's' that he is not Jesus Christ. Aaron is as oily as ever, happy to take trap money but wincing from a feeling of self-disgust after shaking Nicolson's hand. Steve's characterisation is surprisingly well delineated. At one stage he accuses Ned of seeing him as 'the iffy one', the one that Ned does not quite trust. Ned answers, diplomatically, that he never knows what Steve is going to do next. When Steve accuses Ned of being obsessed with his mother, Ned decks him and then apologises. He denies, to a young chambermaid, ever firing a shot at Stringybark Creek.



But towering over them all, of course, is the tortured Kelly, the 'half wild ass of a man', to borrow Manning Clark's phrase. Kelly's face is 'set in time, never to grow any older.' Teri Merlyn, in her doctoral thesis on Eric Lambert, sees the novel as 'a sympathetic but acute observation of his decline into monomania and madness through isolation and a burning resentment against a regime he knows will never give him and his kind any justice.' In Lambert's novel, she continues, Kelly is an 'explosion of fury' against the historical injustice of English oppression of the Irish.



As for Lambert - he was a troubled and tortured man himself. The author of seventeen novels under his own name as well as novelisations of films was born in England in 1918 but came to Australia with his parents as a toddler. His war service left him in poor health: at one stage he was injured by a grenade, and he claimed to have an ulcer 'the size of a poached egg.' Lambert was talented and idealistic but hypertensive. His state of mind was, in the words of the Australian dictionary of biography 'unpredictable and disputative.' In 1947 the troubled Lambert joined the Communist Party and became mates with the celebrated Communist author, Frank Hardy, who was his best man at his first wedding. Their friendship was, in Teri Merlyn's words in her 1998 article on Lambert in Overland (a journal he helped to found in 1954) 'a tumult of idealistic political high jinks and high drama, fuelled by vast quantities of alcohol and prolific writing.'



In 1956 Lambert went to Hungary as an observer and broke with the Communists in the wake of their excesses after the Russian invasion of that nation. He wrote articles for the right wing press attacking Communism, and his friend Hardy saw him as a traitor to the cause, telling Lambert in an open letter 'you have more ex-mates than any other Australian.' Eric Lambert died of acute hypertensive heart failure in 1966. He was only 48.

The Shenandoah Affair [Sharon Hollingsworth]

The Civil War ship, the C.S.S. Shenandoah, was a Confederate raider that docked in Melbourne in 1865 causing sensation amongst the populace and almost sparking an international incident. As an aside, when the Shenandoah arrived in Australia they were met with the news that Washington, North Carolina had fallen to Union forces (quite an uncanny coincidence, as that was my hometown). The Shenandoah's Captain, James Waddell, was himself a North Carolina native.

The arrival of the Shenandoah in Melbourne would have been around the time that young Ned Kelly saved the drowning Richard Shelton at Avenel (but some say he saved young Shelton in 1866). We can only wonder what young Ned had heard (and thought) about all the drama surrounding the Shenandoah (never realising that himself in several years time would make the same splash in the headlines). It had to have been on everyone's lips in Victoria as literally thousands thronged the ship during the first few days she was in port.

Several key Kelly players were involved with the Shenandoah while in
Melbourne, among them Charles Nicolson, Frederick Standish, Henry Gurner, Arthur Chomley, Graham Berry and Dr. Edward Barker. Dr. Barker was referred to only as "Dr. B." by a midshipman who was amongst those from the Shenandoah invited to a formal dinner at the Melbourne Club.  Dr. B. sat beside Midshipman Mason and talked non-stop about the art and science of hanging criminals. I surmised from just that bit that it was Dr. Barker as he had done the same thing at the post-execution (of Ned Kelly) lunch gathering at which he expounded at length on the subject in 1880. Then I did some follow up and read the actual diary/journal entries of the midshipman and he then made other references that confirmed to me it was indeed Barker. His reputation proceeds him, does it not?


I urge all to search out more about the Shenandoah and her sojourn in Australia, it is quite fascinating reading. There are many non-fiction books about the whole incident and I know of at least one fictional one, an historical romance written by Paul Williams called "The Shenandoah Affair" published in 1992. (Williams also wrote the non-fiction "Matthew Brady and Ned Kelly : Kindred Spirits, Kindred Lives.") Brian Stevenson sent me a copy of "The Shenandoah Affair" a few years back and I have read it at least three times, it is that good! Of course, many of the events are merely fabrications, but the historical aspects were handled very well and you feel like you were actually there as Williams is such a good writer. You get a real feel of how things were for the crew and the public alike during those exciting times.

In the acknowledgements for the book it says:
This book is a novel, but all quotations from, or references to affidavits, newspaper stories, parliamentary debates and official communications are factual.

Standish is not mentioned by name in it, but "Detective Superintendent Nicolson," Henry Gurner, Graham Berry and "Mr. Chomley" are in the book. Gurner is a most amusing character, always being a slave to his appetite! Capt. Waddell was a slave to quite another appetite! My favourite line from the book: "But each turn of the propeller took him swiftly away from the woman who had evoked in him such bittersweet emotions: frustration, joy, lust and anger, but above all, the savage love he had never experienced before." Good stuff!! Of course, there is enough of the nautical and historical stuff to offset the romance so men can enjoy the book too!

I have been looking around the net and I don't see if for sale new at this time but there are some for sale on the secondary market that run the gamut from $8 to $80! (I am hanging on to my copy!) Reminds me of the prequel to "Somewhere in Time" called "Memoirs of Elise" that was going for $65 and up secondhand when I found a mint copy for 99 cents at the Salvation Army Thrift Store! You can well imagine my delight that day!

Maybe some libraries down under might have copies of "The Shenandoah Affair"?

Or perhaps it will be reprinted in light of the fact that it is being made into a movie:

http://www.inov8entertainment.com/102/Current_Projects_innovate_entertainment/Current-Projects-innovate-entertainment.html

If the film is half as good as the book it should be a corker!

UPDATE: THE 20TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION OF THE SHENANDOAH AFFAIR IS NOW AVAILABLE AT AMAZON.COM

 GO HERE FOR DETAILS:

  http://elevenmilecreek.blogspot.com/2012/05/20th-anniversary-edition-of-shenandoah.html

Something Borrowed [Sharon Hollingsworth]

When Sgt. Kennedy and Constables Lonigan, Scanlon and McIntyre set out
on the hunt for the Kellys which turned in to what we know as the
Stringybark Creek incident they had many borrowed things with them.

They had borrowed a tent.

In a letter dated December 6, 1878 written to Sub-Inspector Pewtress,
Archibald McKenzie wrote:


To Mr. Pewtress, sub inspector police, Mansfield

Sir,

On the 24th September 1878 the late Sgt Kennedy borrowed a tent from
me which was destroyed by the Kelly gang. I therefore desire to be
paid the sum of three (3) pounds, three (3) shillings, the value of
the said tent or equivalent, a duck tent 8 ft x 10 ft..

Archibald McKenzie, Mansfield


They had borrowed horses.

 In the Royal Commission Sadleir said:

 "As I have already informed Sergeant Kennedy by telegraph, he will be
required here to consult with the other sub-officers engaged in this
matter; let him come by to-morrow’s coach, bringing a plain saddle
with him, as I wish him to take back a horse specially fitted for this
expedition. Constable Scanlon and Constable McIntyre will also form
two of the party from the Mansfield end.” ...That horse that Sergeant
Kennedy was to ride was a very remarkable white horse, and I did not
think he was suitable for work of this sort, and I gave him another
quiet handy horse - that was the horse that McIntyre afterwards
escaped on..."

Constable McIntyre stated that:

Kennedy was riding a young, flash mare changed for a steadier horse
P18, which Constable Scanlon led up from Benalla.


They had borrowed weapons.

 In the Royal Commission Constable John Kelly said:

In March 1877 I was transferred to Wood's Point to take charge of the
Wood's Point station, and on the 23rd October 1878 I left Wood's
Point, in charge of a gold escort, for Benalla. On the 24th I arrived
at Mansfield, and the late Sergeant Kennedy met me at the coach. He
told me in confidence he was going out after the Kellys. He asked me
if I would let him have a rifle that Constable Horwood was going to
take with him on the escort. I told him that as there was only the one
rifle between us, it would be a very dangerous thing, but, after
consideration, I said, “Get a second revolver and give it to Horwood,”
and I said, “You can have the rifle.”

This weapon was a .500 calibre seven-shot Spencer carbine.


Another weapon, a double-barrelled breach-loading shot gun, was
borrowed from the Rev. Mr. Samuel Sandiford, an Anglican clergyman of
Mansfield. This weapon was the one McIntyre used to shoot at parrots,
which alerted the Kellys to the police party's near-by presence. It
was taken by the Kellys after bailing up the camp and later used
during the Euroa holdup and even later Joe Byrne used it to
assassinate Aaron Sherritt. Ironically, according to Ian Jones, it
"was almost certainly the one which fired the fatal shot at Kennedy."

There is one other thing that Kennedy, Scanlon and Lonigan probably
wished they could have borrowed.....time...and a whole lot more of it.