Judge Barry (No, Not That One!) On Ned Kelly in the Australian Dictionary of Biography (Brian Stevenson)

 

 

 

Herewith is the original version of Judge Jack Barry's Australian dictionary of biography entry on Ned Kelly.

 

Judge Barry, no kin to Redmond Barry, was a judge of the Victorian Supreme Court from 1947 until 1969. His father, a house painter, was from Beechworth and the judge was born in Albury, on the fringes of Kelly Country, in 1903. Tellings and retellings of the Kelly story were a feature of his earliest years. An opponent of capital punishment from his early days as a lawyer, he developed a reputation as one of Victoria's leading criminal defence lawyers. Widely read, and with a passion for clarity and accuracy, he remained a man of the Left throughout his career. Despite this, according to Peter Ryan, author, columnist, former director of Melbourne University Press and a friend of Barry's,  'his reverence for the truth trumped mere politics every time.'

 

Ryan, who reviewed Ian MacFarlane's The Kelly Gang unmasked in the Quadrant of March 2013, once asked him about the integrity of Ned's trial and sentence. Barry considered the matter and, as Ryan relates:

 

'In due course he handed me his detailed opinion on the Kelly trial. It concluded that all the rules and procedures in force at the period had been fully observed, and that no other result could have been expected.'

 

Despite this conclusion, there is evidence in Barry's original ADB entry of his attempt to identify and understand characteristics of the social environment that created Ned Kelly. The final version of Barry's entry is readily available online at the dictionary's website, but it bears obvious signs of very heavy editorial emendation. The original article, for example only mentions the Jerilderie Letter and the armour in passing, and does not mention the Cameron letter at all.  

 

Barry submitted the first draft to the ADB in February 1967. Although he was allocated 1250 words for the entry, he went way over the length requested. As a contributor to the ADB myself since 1986 I can testify to the difficulty of adhering to the word limits, though as a member since 2009 of the ADB's Queensland working party that selects biographical subjects and allocates wordage I have some sympathy for the editors also. I should add that I have been reasonably satisfied by the condensations and amendments made to my own work, though I recall the late Edgar Penzig saying to me of one of his entries 'That's not what I wrote, cobber.' (Edgar wrote the entries for Frank Gardiner, Ben Hall and John Gilbert.)

 

Barry died in 1969 so was not around to witness the 1974 publication of his entry. Mark Finnane, in the National Library of Australia news for June 2007 described the entry as 'thorough in preparation and dispassionate in tone' and as a 'social-psychological analysis that acknowledged the possibility of maternal influences on Kelly's disposition, while stressing also the social contexts of the gang's exploits.' The concluding paragraphs, which in Finnane's words 'pungently addressed the polarity of the Kelly legend' were edited out, including these words which 'contextualized the Kelly outbreak as a phenomenon that was grounded in a particular colonial history':

 

 '... memories still fresh of the convict system, and in particular of transportation from Ireland, Irish hatred of the English, resentment and distrust of officialdom, the unjust land laws, the socialists' dislike of the English master-class, the bleak prospects of small selectors and the hardships of bush life, the privations of the discontented urban poor; and the infuriating pretensions of the upper elements of a class-ridden society.'

 

Barry's original article, however, was not lost to history, just rendered a little hard to find. It was reproduced in the Age on 28 July 1970, on page 5 of the Features Section. I do not think it is available online, so I transcribed it, paragraph headings included. See what you think! Oh, and do not be too put out by Henry Gyles Turner's unflattering description of Ned: before he retired to become a historian, Turner was a banker!

 

Here is the original entry!

 

Mother's boy as folk hero

Sir John Barry

Age 28 July 1970 p 5 of Features Section

EDWARD KELLY (1855-1880), bushranger and executed felon.

Ned Kelly was the dominant character in the activities of the Kelly gang, consisting of himself, his younger brother Dan (1861-1880), Joe Byrne (1857-1880) and Steve Hart (1860-1880).

 

Ned Kelly was the eldest son of John (Red) Kelly (b. Tipperary, Ireland, 1820) who was sentenced in 1841 to seven years transportation for stealing two pigs. In 1848 he went to Port Phillip and on November 18. 1850, he married Ellen Quinn, aged 18.

 

 

Edward was born at Beveridge, Victoria, in June, 1855, and attended school at Avenel until the death of his father on December 27, 1866. Left in poor circumstances, the widow and her children moved to a hut at Eleven Mile Creek, about halfway between Greta and Glenrowan, in north-eastern Victoria.

 

In 1869 Edward Kelly was arrested on a charge of assaulting a Chinese. He was held for 10 days on remand, but the charge was dismissed. In the next year he was arrested and held in custody for seven weeks on a charge that he was an accomplice of a bushranger, Henry Power, but again the charge was dismissed.

 

In 1870, Kelly, then 15, was convicted of summary offences and imprisoned for six months. Soon after release he was sentenced to three years' imprisonment for receiving a mare and knowing it to have been stolen.

 

 

Horse thefts

 

Discharged from prison in 1874, Kelly worked for two years at timber-getting but, in 1876, joined his stepfather George King (who had married Ellen Kelly in 1874) in stealing horses for sale across the Murray River.

 

The Kelly family regarded themselves as victims of police persecution, but it is highly probable that, as they grew up, the boys were privy to the organized thefts of horses and cattle for which the district was notorious.

 

The incident that precipitated the crimes of the Kelly gang occurred in 1878. Dan Kelly, then 16, was sentenced to three months' imprisonment in 1877 for damaging property and, after he was released in 1878, a warrant was issued for his arrest for horse-stealing.

 

On April 15, 1878, a police trooper named Fitzpatrick went to Mrs Kelly's place, allegedly to arrest Dan Kelly. Fitzpatrick, a worthless and thoroughly unreliable fellow, claimed Ned Kelly had shot him.

 

Dan went into hiding, and Mrs Kelly and her son-in-law, William Skillion, and a neighbor, William Williamson, were arrested and charged with aiding and abetting the attempted murder of Fitzpatrick.

 

In October, 1878, Mrs Kelly, Skillion and Williamson were tried at Beechworth and convicted. Mr Justice Redmond Barry sentenced her to imprisonment for three years and the two male accused to imprisonment for six years. 

 

Rewards of 100 pounds were offered for the apprehension of Ned and Dan Kelly, who went into hiding in the Wombat Ranges, about 20 miles from Mansfield. They were joined by Joe Byrne, 21, from Beechworth, and Steve Hart, 18, a daring horseman from Wangaratta.

 

In October, 1878, a police patrol consisting of Sergeant Kennedy and Constables Lonigan, Scanlon and McIntyre set out to capture Ned and Dan Kelly and, on October 25, camped at Stringybark Creek. They were seen by Ned.

 

On October 26 Kennedy and Scanlon went out on patrol, leaving Lonigan and McIntyre at the camp. The Kelly brothers, accompanied by Hart and Byrne, surprised the camp and, when Lonigan drew his revolver, Ned shot him dead. McIntyre surrendered.

 

When Kennedy and Scanlon returned they did not surrender when called on and, in an exchange of shots, Ned killed Scanlon and mortally wounded Kennedy. Ned later shot Kennedy in the heart. He claimed he did so as an act of mercy. McIntyre escaped and took the news of the killings to Mansfield.

 

Crude methods

 

On November 15, 1878, the Government of Victoria issued a proclamation of outlawry and offered rewards of 500 pounds each for the outlaws, alive or dead. Police were mobilized, but their methods of pursuit and of obtaining information were crude and inept.

 

On December 9, 1879, the Kelly gang took possession of a sheep station at Faithfull's Creek, about four miles out of Euroa, locking up 22 persons in a storeroom. While Byrne kept guard over the captives the other three went to Euroa where they held up the National Bank, taking 2000 pounds in notes and gold.

 

This crime resulted in a doubling of the reward, but less than two months later, on Saturday, February 8, 1879, the gang struck again, this time at the Bank of New South Wales, Jerilderie. They rounded up 60 persons and held them in the Royal Hotel, next door to the bank.

 

Ned gave a written statement of over 8000 words to a bank teller as his explanation and justification of his conduct. The reward for the outlaws was increased to 2000 pounds a head.

 

Special train

 

Aaron Sherritt, a friend of Joe Byrne's, became an agent for the police, and, on Saturday, June 27, 1880, Sherritt was shot dead by Byrne (who was accompanied by Dan Kelly) in his own doorway near Beechworth, while the four constables assigned to guard Sherritt hid in a bedroom. Byrne and Dan Kelly then joined Ned and Steve Hart at Glenrowan. There they took possession of a hotel conducted by Mrs Ann Jones, where they detained about 60 people.

 

The outlaws foresaw that a special train would be sent from Melbourne on the Sunday night, and would arrive at Glenrowan in the early hours of Monday, June 29 and, with the intention of wrecking it, they compelled two railway workers to tear up a portion of the railway lines. The scheme came to nothing because the schoolmaster, Thomas Curnow, whom Ned Kelly had allowed to go home from the hotel with his wife and child and sister, gave warning to the train crew.

 

The outlaws were equipped with armour made from plough mouldboards.

 

Under Superintendent Hare, the police surrounded the hotel and shooting began. Hare was shot in the arm and Ned was wounded in the foot, hand and arm. Dan Kelly, Byrne and Hart took refuge in the hotel and Ned went into the bush. Police firing continued and Byrne was shot in the thigh as he stood at the hotel bar and bled to death.

 

About 5 am Ned, clad in armour, came out of the bush, looking huge and grotesque in the early morning mist. He was brought down by bullet wounds in the legs.

 

Most of the persons held captive in the hotel had succeeded in getting out of the building, and the last of them emerged about 10 am. An old man named Cherry was in a detached kitchen, fatally wounded by a police bullet; a boy, John Jones, son of the hotel-keeper, was similarly shot in the abdomen and died later in hospital. 

 

With Ned captured, a policeman set the building on fire.

 

Father Matthew Gibney went into the burning building to administer the last rites and, on emerging, reported three bodies were inside. One, Byrne's, was brought out by police. The other two were those of Dan Kelly and Steve Hart, who had apparently committed suicide by poison and were found to have been burned beyond recognition.

 

On October 28 and 29, 1880, at Melbourne, Kelly was tried for the murder of Constable Thomas Lonigan at Stringybark Creek. He was found guilty and Mr Justice Barry sentenced him to death.

 

Despite strong agitation for a reprieve, Kelly was hanged at the Melbourne gaol on November 11, 1880, at the age of 25. He met his end without fear. His last words were, 'Ah well, I suppose it has come to this', and (according to another version) 'Such is life.'

 

Dare-devil

 

Henry Gyles Turner regarded Ned Kelly as 'a shabby skulker' but he observed, 'It was a humiliating reflection ... that the whole machinery of Government, the apparent zeal of a well-disciplined and costly police service, the stimulus of enormous rewards and an expenditure of fully 100 000 pounds were, for two whole years, insufficient to check the predatory career of these four reckless dare-devil boys.'

 

Undoubtedly, the gang were murderers and robbers and as such should have excited public detestation. Yet it did not turn out that way, and the hold the Kelly legend has had upon Australian imagination is too clearly established to be disregarded.

 

However mistaken, the popular estimate of Kelly's killings of the police at Stringybark Creek accords with the statement, 'I could not help shooting them, or else let them shoot me, which they would have done if their bullets had been directed as they intended', while the elements of farce surrounding the bank robberies at Euroa and Jerilderie distract attention from the gravity of the crimes.

 

In the judgment of a responsible writer 'Ned Kelly is the best known Australian, our only folk hero ... Popular instinct has found in Kelly a man of manliness much to be esteemed - to reiterate: courage, resolution, independence, sympathy with the underdog.' (Clive Turnbull, Ned Kelly, being his own story of his life and crimes, Melbourne, 1942, introduction.)

 

Still fresh

 

The Kelly legend brought into being the phrase, 'as game as Ned Kelly', used to describe the ultimate in bravery. It has inspired imaginative tales, (in which, commonly, the facts are highly coloured or distorted to favour Kelly) and folk-ballads. And it has taken new life in Sidney Nolan's first and second series of Kelly gang paintings.

 

Before his capture and in the years soon after Kelly's death, there were many factors in the Australian social organization that fostered the legend - memories still fresh of the convict system and, in particular, of transportation from Ireland; Irish hatred of the English, resentment, and distrust of officialdom; the unjust land laws; the socialists' dislike of the English master class; the bleak prospects of small selectors and the hardships of bush life; the privations of the discontented urban poor; and the infuriating pretensions of the upper elements of a class-ridden society.

 

Its vigorous survival was ensured, too, by tale and son and recitation around the camp-fire and in bush shanties. But even in an affluent society with radio and television as its entertainment, the legend persists and is still vital.

 

Seemingly, it has a compelling quality that appeals to something deeply rooted in the character of the average Australian.

 

As is common in Irish families, Kelly was strongly attached to his mother.  There is no factual basis for the story that he was involved in a romantic relationship with a young woman.

 

 

Article Alert: Ned Kelly Bailed Up with iPhones

In The Border Mail of August 12, 2013 there is an article and slide show from the Beechworth Ned Kelly weekend called "Ned Kelly Bailed Up with iPhones" in which it tells about everyone both in costume and out using their iPhones to "capture" Ned Kelly.

http://www.bordermail.com.au/story/1698599/ned-kelly-bailed-up-with-iphones-gallery/?cs=53

Article Alert: Flamin' Heck it was just so real

In The Border Mail of August 12, 2013 there is an article and slide show (the photos are very impressive) called "Flamin' Heck, It was Just So Real" about the siege reenactment and the burning of the Inn. They said that about 200 visitors were there for the show.

From the article:

Shouts came from the crowd each time the bushrangers appeared during the re-enactment, proving that even 133 years after his demise Kelly still has supporters.

“It worked exceptionally well,” organiser Ian Sinclair said.

“The fire brigade was there just in case, but they had nothing to do except enjoy the show.”

To read more and see photos:

http://www.bordermail.com.au/story/1698529/flamin-heck-it-was-just-so-real/?cs=11

Upcoming Book Alert: Peter FitzSimon's 'Ned Kelly' to be published November 2013

  Peter FitzSimons has written a new (non-fiction) book - Ned Kelly - The Story of Australia's Most Notorious Legend - that is going to be published in November (2013).

Stay tuned here for any further news and reviews!


Excerpt from the publisher's (William Heinemann Australia) website:

Peter FitzSimons, bestselling chronicler of many of the great defining moments and people of this nation's history, is the perfect person to tell this most iconic of all Australian stories. From Kelly's early days in Beveridge, Victoria, in the mid-1800s, to the Felons' Apprehension Act, which made it possible for anyone to shoot the Kelly gang, to Ned's appearance in his now-famous armour, prompting the shocked and bewildered police to exclaim ‘He is the devil!' and ‘He is the bunyip!', FitzSimons brings the history of Ned Kelly and his gang exuberantly to life, weighing in on all of the myths, legends and controversies generated by this compelling and divisive Irish-Australian rebel. 

See more at:

http://www.randomhouse.com.au/books/peter-fitzsimons/ned-kelly-9781742758909.aspx

Article Alert: Ned Kelly bank hold-up helps fill the coffers at Beechworth

The Age newspaper of August 11, 2013 has an article about the Beechworth Ned Kelly Weekend entitled "Ned Kelly bank hold-up helps fill the coffers at Beechworth."

It begins with:

A hold-up was held in a bank in Beechworth on Saturday, and the manager and staff knew all about it.
But they weren't aiding and abetting a group of criminals. By entertaining tourists as part of Ned Kelly weekend - including the pretend police firing off a few blanks from antique guns at the pretend criminals in the main street - they were filling the coffers of the north-east Victorian town.
Gareth Kay, manager of the Bendigo Bank, whose staff dressed in 1870s period costume, agreed it was unusual for a bank to participate and reckoned more mainstream banks would not agree to it.
''It's about participating in our community so if there's a festival we get involved in it.''

Among events held for Ned Kelly Weekend was a re-enactment of the 1880 committal trial of Kelly in the town's courthouse after the siege of Glenrowan, 60 kilometres away; and the burning down of Annie Jones' pub during the siege. The latter didn't actually happen in Beechworth, but this is the heart of Kelly country, organisers say. And the re-enactment didn't actually involve burning down a pub; due to Occupational Health and Safety, gas flames were ignited next to a timber replica of a grog shop on Saturday night in the town's police paddock. But you got the drift....

To read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/ned-kelly-bank-holdup-helps-fill-the-coffers-at-beechworth-20130810-2rp06.html#ixzz2baYnC5BR

Article Alert: Death Mask Unlikely to be that of Ned Kelly

from google alerts..

The Fraser Coast Chronicle of  April 8, 2013 has an article entitled "Death Mask Unlikely to be that of Ned Kelly: Trust."
It begins with:

 The National Trust of Victoria is sceptical about the authenticity of the Fraser Coast Ned Kelly mask.

The Chronicle reported on Friday of Torquay woman Valerie McKie's belief she had one of several Kelly death masks.

Victorian National Trust learning and interpretations manager Martin Green said he had his doubts on the mask after the Chronicle sent a photograph to be compared with the original.

"I leave it to you to be the judge because I do not think it can be determined but feel it is unlikely," he said.

"Initially I felt the similarity was not there at all and the mask was of a female but as you can see they do share some proportions.

"It looks to me like the mask you sent lacks all detail like hair and eyelashes and may be a copy of a copy of a copy."

To read more:
http://www.frasercoastchronicle.com.au/news/death-mask-unlikely-to-be-that-of-ned-kelly-trust/1820419/

Article Alert: Death Mask Mystery...Could it be Ned Kelly's?

The Bundaberg NewsMail of April 5, 2013 has an article entitled "Death Mask Mystery...Could it be Ned Kelly's?"

It begins with:


 A ghoulish memento of Australia's most infamous outlawed bushranger could be on the Fraser Coast.

Torquay woman Valerie McKie believes she has a rare death mask of Ned Kelly, one of only a handful in existence.

She was given the mask by her late partner Stan Jones, father of the 1980 Formula One world champion Alan Jones, before he died in the 1970s.

Stan told her it belonged to a prominent bushranger and was worth a lot of money.

"I think it might have been the big one," she said.

"It's someone important and it's a bushranger from Victoria.

"I wasn't told it was Ned Kelly but Stan said it belonged to someone very famous."

To read more:
http://www.news-mail.com.au/news/death-mask-mystery/1818467/

Event Alert: Presumed Ned: the Discovery of the Lost Pentridge Burials (April 15, 2013)

Presumed Ned: the Discovery of the Lost Pentridge Burials

Museum Victoria and Heritage Victoria cordially invite you to the 
2013 Heritage Address
6pm on Monday 15 April
Museum Theatre, Melbourne Museum
The address will be chaired by Andrew May and presented by Jeremy Smith on
“Presumed Ned: the Discovery of the Lost Pentridge Burials”

Please note that places are limited and we ask you to R.S.V.P. via email to discoverylectures@museum.vic.gov.au by 11 April
Need more details? Contact Kerry on 9208 3622

Ruminations on MacFarlane and the dark side of the Kelly world [Brian Stevenson]

It has been good to read the reviews and other commentaries on my own three part review of Ian MacFarlane's The Kelly Gang unmasked. Whether you agree with his conclusions or not, as the first anti-Kelly book for many a long year, it is an important book, more so because of the meticulous documentation throughout. I thank all for their comments, even if the line that I took on the book did not always meet with approval. 


Although part one of my review was partly favourable and part two was very favourable, I may have left the impression from part three, which contained some criticisms and suggestions, that I did not think that the book was a worthwhile one. Part three consisted of a laundry list of errors and misconceptions which I found in the book, together with what I felt was helpful information towards rectifying them for any future edition. Some of the errors were trivial - Redmond Barry's death date was a day out, for example - and some were serious, like the omission of Constable Hall's unwarrantedly brutal treatment of Ned.


None were particularly hard to fix - a line here, a word here, a new paragraph there - and none interfered that much with, let alone negated Mr MacFarlane's central themes, the perennially overrated heroic qualities and underrated criminal qualities of Ned Kelly. Alterations and emendations would not, as one forum participant claimed, have turned it from an anti- to pro- Kelly book. While my praise for it as it stands will never be unalloyed, it is a more than worthwhile and very thought-provoking antidote to the hero worship of Jones, and the generally favourable viewpoints of other respected authorities - McMenomy, McQuilton, Molony, Corfield and others. I do hope that a second edition, where some attention is paid to my comments, will be seriously considered.

Some see an inconsistency in my calling the book important and praising its meticulous documentation and then being critical of some aspects. Not at all. I found a great deal in the book to like, though of course I could not agree with every line on every page. Things are never that simple or clearcut. I covered neither Stringybark Creek nor Ned Kelly's trial in my three blog posts, but Mr MacFarlane handled both of these very well and provided some new insights. I am hoping to do separate blog posts on both of these issues in the future when I have fulfilled writing commitments with the Australian Dictionary of Biography and the Biographical Dictionary of Australian Senators which I have left unattended to for far too long.

His impressive intellectual, research and writing efforts apart, Mr MacFarlane is to be congratulated having the guts to produce what he must have known would be an unpopular volume. It was, of course, to be expected that he would attract some criticism, although it is likely that he did not foresee the lowness of the attacks that would be made on him on a particular forum (hint: forum jar)  thread that my flesh recoils from linking to this post. I use the term 'lowness' because it perfectly describes both the quality of the comments, and the mean-spirited nature of the people who made them. And, be it said, some of Mr MacFarlane's supporters in this particularly dark corner of the Kelly world aren't any better.
 

While the thread is ostensibly about the tragic events at Stringybark Creek, the three slain policemen, and indeed Ned, haven't got much of a look-in here. There is, however, plenty of ill-natured abuse and invective from both sides where, with very few exceptions, no pretence of politeness and reasonable debate is followed.

The quality of contributions in this place is not high either. If the only thing wrong with this wretched excuse for a discussion was the low quality of debate, it might be good for a guffaw on a wet Tuesday afternoon if you were really bored, or perhaps an argument for increased spending on adult literacy programs. But the nastiness of the posts here has long transcended their amusing aspects.

Surely, in terms of rational debate where one side can learn from another, the Kelly world can do better than this. It is hard to determine which side is worse. Needless to say no one is learning anything from this nonsense, except that when it comes to Internet discussions about Ned Kelly, pro or con, there is no upper limit to the rudeness and meanness of some participants, and no lower limit to their manners.

Somewhere in all this mess, by-the-by, is a repeated challenge to Mr MacFarlane to post a link on the book's Facebook site to my blog post that mentioned the errors in his book. I do not think any the less of his work by his non-posting, and it is his prerogative to post whatever he wants on his own Facebook page. If he doesn't want to link this part of my review, I don't mind. I don’t care. I don't think that anyone else should either.

Facebook links, whatever the effect may be on sales, will not affect the intrinsic worth of this book. Although it's a pretty lonely volume, it will last as an alternative viewpoint to the conventional 'wisdom' which has been recycled so many times. Like all worthwhile works of history it took years of organisation, self-discipline, hard work and intellect to produce something that most of these commentators could never put together for themselves. Putting together a whole book is no easy task and not for the faint-hearted at the best of times. The book is a reflection of intense research, original thinking, a willingness to look yet again at things that had been taken for granted and a questioning of the often sinister motives behind the short and stormy life of our most controversial Australian.

All these are present in this book, but the production and the publishing of The Kelly gang unmasked needed something else rather special, It needed something so lacking in so many of Mr MacFarlane's largely anonymous, ill-mannered and ignoble ill-wishers (and some of his supporters): courage. And whether you agree with him or not, in producing this book, this gentleman has shown it in spades.

Article Alert: Truth of Dan Kelly's Fate Stays a Mystery

from google alerts..

In the February 22, 2013 edition of The Queensland Times there is an article entitled "Truth of Dan Kelly's Fate Stays a Mystery" in which Brian Stevenson is extensively quoted. Brian had contacted the writer, Joel Gould, with the information after seeing an earlier article Gould had written where James Ryan was yet again touted as being Dan Kelly.

The article begins with:

It is a debate that has been in play for 80 years.
When an Ipswich vagrant going by the name of James Ryan walked into the offices of The Truth newspaper in 1933 and said he was bushranger Dan Kelly it unleashed an enduring controversy.
Ryan is buried in the Ipswich General Cemetery and his links to Kelly are honoured at the site.
Before Ryan's claims, Dan Kelly was thought to have died in the Glenrowan hotel fire of 1880.
In 2005 Cairns author and historian Brian Stevenson debated Cr Paul Tully about the issue in Ipswich. Mr Stevenson does not believe Ryan was Kelly, while Cr Tully is open to the possibility that he was.....

To read more:http://www.qt.com.au/news/truth-of-dan-kellys-fate-stays-a-mystery/1765659/

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

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

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

Part two can be read at

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


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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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





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





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



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



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



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

(Part 2) A Review of Ian MacFarlane's 'The Kelly Gang Unmasked' [Brian Stevenson]

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

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

THOUGHTS ON THE REPUBLIC FROM IAN MACFARLANE'S  'THE KELLY GANG UNMASKED' AND FROM ME TOO

 

Although we are a young country in terms of European settlement, tantalizing myths that are unverified (but not unverifiable) abound and there is always much speculation surrounding them. The Mahogany Ship is one, Lasseter’s Reef is another, but the one keen followers of this blog are most concerned with is the suggestion that Ned Kelly had the dream of establishing a Republic of North-eastern Victoria.

Ian MacFarlane has produced the most convincing refutation of all in his work The Kelly Gang unmasked. It won’t set the myth to rest, but he advances several arguments which combined make a strong case against Kelly ever having such an aim, or even an idea. Although his book is imperfect in many other ways, his arguments in this section of the book are compelling. In this blog post, I will be outlining MacFarlane’s arguments here and supplementing them with more than a few thoughts of my own.

I do not know where the story of the proposed Republic originated, although in a lecture on the Republic the late John Phillips says it is mentioned in a 1920s issue of the ‘magazine’, Irish times.  The Irish times is actually a newspaper, but the point is moot because Phillips does not give a date or elaborate on what it says. The lecture, ‘The North-Eastern Republican Movement–Myth or Reality?’ is available online. Phillips, who wrote a book on Ned’s trial, admits the documentary evidence is ‘sparse’ and says that interested parties should draw their own conclusions. Somehow Max Brown, author of the 1948 biography of Ned, Australian son, picked up the story and claimed, without giving his source, that the police had found a declaration of said Republic in Ned’s pocket when he was captured. But even he referred to it, on page x (ie, Roman numeral x) of the 1986 edition of his book, as part of the legend.

MacFarlane is sceptical of all aspects of the proposed republic. Had the ‘declaration’ ever been produced the point would have been settled beyond all possible doubt, but it never has, beyond an alleged sighting in 1962, discussed below. It was not that MacFarlane believes, as one forum participant has suggested, that ‘Ned wouldn’t be smart enough to understand something like that.’ It is just that MacFarlane shows understandable reluctance to believe in a document that was not even mentioned till at least forty years after it was supposedly created, and has never been produced for examination.

Ian Jones is, of course, the most enthusiastic advocate of the republic thesis, first in a seminar paper in 1967 and then in A short life and The friendship that destroyed Ned Kelly. His primary source was Tom Lloyd Junior, who Jones interviewed in 1964. Mr Lloyd claimed that minutes of meetings discussing the republic were recorded in exercise books.  MacFarlane commented (p 208): ‘His boyhood memories were of a superior kind if he understood what a republic and minutes of meetings were.’  But the point is made also that although their continued existence is alluded to up to this day (even in a 2007 private email to the present writer), no one has ever produced the exercise books. Further, as MacFarlane says (p 12) of Jones’s interviews with Lloyd and others: ‘[W]e do not know what has said at the interviews. They have never been published or even quoted to support any of the assertions made.’ Jones himself (The friendship that destroyed Ned Kelly: Joe Byrne and Aaron Sherritt, p 224) admits that the other interviewees on the republic ‘confirmed some details, [and] challenged others’ so even from this highly respected source there is no cohesive and consistent story, let alone documentation of same.

This apart, I’m wondering why anyone felt the need to record these meetings much in the same way as those of the local cricket club. Did the fugitives have a chairman to keep the meetings in order, a secretary to handle correspondence as well? Were motions moved and disallowed, rejected or carried?  I can’t imagine the horse-mad, slow speaking Steve Hart, the quarrelsome ruffian Wild Wright and the quiet Dan Kelly, (who like Hart never lived to be old enough to vote) contributing too much to discussions aimed at creating a new political system.  I’m also remembering that in one of his accounts of Stringybark Creek, McIntyre noted with Victorian delicacy that words like ‘fellow’ and ‘man’ did not seem to be in the vocabulary of his captors, so let us hope that the minutes were not verbatim. In his biography of Ned, John Molony carried it even further by saying that David Gaunson, a member of the Victorian parliament, and later Ned’s counsel attended some meetings. Even Ian Jones, in the discussion after John McQuilton’s paper ‘Ned Kelly: Social Bandit or Rural Criminal?’ at the 1993 Ned Kelly: man and myth symposium said of Gaunson’s possible involvement: ‘I find that hard to accept, frankly.’

Jones sees the presence of armed groups of men at Glenrowan as some kind of verification that an armed rebellion with a republic in mind was in the offing. He grandiosely refers to Ned as ‘the man who brought an unimaginable concept so close to reality’ (A short life, 2003 edition, p 192.) Actually, it missed by miles – like nearly all unimaginable concepts. MacFarlane also notes the reported sightings of the armed men, but says of the vagueness and disparate nature of such reports:‘[I]f there were sympathizers present or nearby, they were not an organized force.’ The oral traditions that Jones heard over eighty years after the events were very vague, even with regard to numerical estimates, which ranged from 30 to 150 though Jones somehow settled on around 50 (The friendship that destroyed Ned Kelly, p 229). We will never know exactly who showed up to Glenrowan with weapons or why, so MacFarlane’s suggestion that some of them were there in the hope of doing something or other that would entitle them to a share of the reward can’t be ruled out. Or perhaps they were, as he also suggests, ‘rubberneckers’ (his word.)

What we do know is that unless you count the aid of James Kershaw and others, who helped Ned to put on his armour, no sympathiser provided assistance once the firing started, seriously calling their commitment to the proposed republic into question. Jones tells us that in the last minutes of Joe Byrne’s life he called to the McAuliffe brothers, also in the Glenrowan Hotel, to help him. One of them replied, but no help came (Jones, A short life p 228.) The two McAuliffes were briefly handcuffed and held after they left the hotel, but even on that impassioned day, the police had no interest in detaining them, although the Chief Commissioner of Police, Frederick Standish had identified one of them as the most dangerous of the sympathisers (MacFarlane, p 14.) If a republic was mooted  clearly it does not seem that the McAuliffes were keen on helping with its establishment. Nor did the police view them as incendiaries or potential revolutionaries.

All this rather begs the question of why, if armed men had assembled for the purpose, not one of them came to Ned’s aid. According to Mr Lloyd Jr, Ned turned away the sympathisers who waited a distance from the hotel. Ian Jones explained his action: ‘a true revolutionary would always be prepared to sacrifice lives, but Ned lacked the ruthlessness to follow such a path, even if it led to victory’ (A short life, p 225.) Jones forgets that if Glenrowan had been a victory for Ned and there had subsequently been an armed rebellion, the lives of sympathisers engaging in confrontation would be at risk too. Further, he benevolently overlooks Ned’s willingness to sacrifice the lives of railway personnel with whom he had no quarrel. Many people would see this as collateral damage in a ‘war’ with the police and use this as an excuse. But an indication of Ned Kelly’s unalloyed viciousness comes from the unlikely source of John Stanistreet, the Glenrowan station master. At 4:30 pm on the Sunday afternoon, when the police train was hours overdue and looked as if it would not come, Stanistreet asked Ned if the rails could be replaced so that the normal Monday morning passenger train would not be wrecked and ordinary civilians and railway personnel would not be killed. Kelly refused (Ian W Shaw, Glenrowan p 95.) Kelly lacked many things, but ruthlessness was not one of them. It is hard to see how allowing a civilian train to be wrecked would win adherents for his republican cause. One of his close friends, Jack McMonigle, had been appalled by the Stringybark Creek murders and had sent word to the Kelly family that he wanted nothing to do with them (A short life p 160.) We can only wonder how the good-hearted rural folk of north-eastern Victoria would have reacted to the wholesale and random slaughter of innocents that Ned Kelly was willing to let take place.

Apart from the lack of documentary evidence, and the inaction of armed sympathisers (if that was what they were) at Glenrowan, MacFarlane also argues that Kelly’s actions, writings and orations showed no interest in a republic.

Kelly expended a great deal of energy in writing to parliamentarian Donald Cameron after Cameron asked a question in Parliament about the ‘scandalous’ conduct of the police pursuit. Although it was, as Ian Jones noted ‘a routine attempt to embarrass the government’ Kelly was naïve and probably egotistical enough to see Cameron as a likely sympathetic channel for his views, and perhaps even a possible ally. As we all know, Cameron could not distance himself from Kelly and his manifesto quickly enough. Kelly simply did not grasp that Parliament, then as now, is the venue for those opposed to the government to call its competence into question on any issue whatsoever, and that a great many parliamentary questions are asked for no reason other than this. This fundamental point was lost on Ned. As MacFarlane puts it: ‘None of Ned’s letters– including the one he sent to Cameron – indicate that he had the faintest grasp of political shenanigans (p 211.)

Nor did, in MacFarlane’s view, Ned’s writings indicate anything in the way of a republican sentiment. The Cameron and Jerilderie letters ‘were floods of words– of invective, hatred, excuses and threats. But there was no mention of a republican outcome … there is no mention in any of his letters of a platform of reforms and initiatives to better the lives of the inhabitants of Victoria’s north-east (pp 208-209.’

Years before MacFarlane wrote his book, Ian Jones stated explicitly (A short lifep 200-201) that Ned and Joe Byrne ‘drew up a Declaration of the Republic of Victoria’ describing it as a ‘manifesto foreshadowed in the Jerilderie Letter and probably incorporating some of its wild rhetoric.’ But Jones continues that, although some copies ‘were printed in the form of handbills’ none can be traced. A printed one may or may not have been displayed in the Public Record Office in London in 1962 but defied all efforts to find it seven years later, and a handwritten copy is hidden away with ‘some letters from a girl and a handkerchief.’ Hard historical evidence this is not and it seems that Jones has never seen the Declaration.

As he could not quote directly from the ‘Declaration’ Jones (p 201) quoted some of Ned’s purported republican sentiments from the Jerilderie letter. But there is little republicanism, or any political ideology (except a sort of rustic, blunt and in places brutal totalitarianism) in these extracts. Anybody assisting the police ‘in any way whatever’ is to be ‘declared unfit to be allowed human burial.’ People who have joined the Stock Protection Society (formed by those who had the temerity to organise against the depredations of stock thieves such as Kelly) are to be compelled to give all their money to the poor. Anyone who has reason to fear Ned is to leave Victoria or ‘abide by the consequences, which shall be worse than the rust in the wheat in Victoria or the druth of a dry season to the grasshoppers in New South Wales.’ Best of all, the well known final touch ‘I am a widow’s son outlawed and my orders must be obeyed.’

One is left to wonder how much of this Ned expected to be taken seriously. I suspect he would be highly amused that all these years later people with ten times his education are in awe of his writings, even though the republican sentiments are less in line with those of Thomas Jefferson and more in line with those of the Democratic People’s Republic of [North] Korea.

MacFarlane also picks up the point that no republican themes or sentiments emerged in the speeches Ned made that have been recorded. ‘He was an indiscreet and chatty speaker, yet he never once mentioned a republic as being among his plans (p 210).’ In his last speech at Glenrowan before the arrival of the police train, quoted copiously in the Argus of 30 June 1880, Ned ranged far and wide with his captive audience but said nothing about his ambitions for a republic. He talked about how Aaron Sherritt had been shot as a traitor and he wanted Ward, the trackers, O’Connor and Hare killed after which, in his words: ‘I would feel easy and contented.’ He added menacingly: ‘And if I ever hear of any of you giving the police any information about us I will shoot you down like dogs.’

As MacFarlane notes (pages 15 to 17) the last part of Ned Kelly’s last oration was a curious one and did not touch on the subject of a republic. Prompted by the sight of a platelayer named Denis Sullivan, Kelly went into a strange and obsessive tirade about his hatred for Joseph Sullivan, a New Zealand murderer who had cheated the gallows by informing on his companions some years before. The munificent Ned offered eight thousand pounds for information on where Sullivan could be found, and a similar amount for the whereabouts of Quinlan, who had shot bushranger Dan Morgan at Peechelba Station over fifteen years before. He then went on with a rambling tale about how the Gang took over Jerilderie almost on impulse after pursuing trails leading to Sullivan in Rutherglen, Uralla and then Wagga before coming to Jerilderie. Ned concluded his anti-Sullivan tirade by saying ‘I’d follow him to England if I thought he was there, because –‘: but whatever reason or reason he was going to advance was lost to posterity forever when the train arrived.

If the fracas at Glenrowan was meant as a preliminary to an armed rebellion aimed at forming a republic, its leader did not mention this in the last speech that he made as a free man. Rather, his words dripped with hatred and venom at his enemies, as well as Joseph Sullivan, who, deplorable creature as he was, had never done Ned any harm. Strange choices of topic indeed.

Naturally, nothing came out about the republic at Kelly’s trial. Ned spent his last days dictating letters to the Governor. His letter of 5 November said that he hoped to ‘take possession of the train Horses and every thing [sic]’ and rob the banks along the train line. He also claimed that he wanted Curnow to claim the reward as he(Ned) had heard it was to be done away with in three days ‘so you can see from the above it was not my intention of upsetting the Train for the Purpose of killing the Police.’ Ian Jones, ever charitable, sees this letter as‘an aberration of the moment’ (A short life pp 280-281.) Kelly’s last letter on 10 November is just as out of touch with the real world, saying once more that if a civilian claimed the reward in the circumstances the police ‘would not interfere with me until such times as there was another Reward issued and if they did not give the Reward to the man that Claimed it no person would inform on me again.’ Jones, stretching a long bow yet again, suggested that Kelly ‘may have concocted it to divert attention from the true strategy and intention of the Glenrowan campaign and so protect those loyal followers who, knowingly or not, had prepared to join the Gang in Murder and High Treason (A short life p 284.) But it seems far more likely to have been aimed at convincing the authorities that his plan was to capture the train, not wreck it. It is hard to see this in turn as anything but an attempt at improving his non-existent chances of at least having his sentence commuted.

So there we have it, an examination of the reasons why some believe that an armed conflict at Glenrowan, which went so hideously wrong for the provokers, was meant to be the first act in a series of events that, it was hoped, to culminate in the establishment of an Australian republic. But I’ll ask those who sincerely believe to ask themselves a couple of questions.

If there were written materials on the establishment of a republic why have they never been published, produced, quoted from or otherwise shown to exist anywhere except in the sparsely outlined reminiscences of several old-timers which don’t even tally with each other? If the armed men at Glenrowan were there in preparation for the rebellion, why did they not intervene? At almost any stage of the battle, thirty men could have made a big difference to the final outcome, and there were allegedly any number up to 150 there. Yet they were not even organized enough to watch for the arrival of the train, let alone to stop teacher Thomas Curnow from warning it.

If Ned Kelly was interested in the establishment of a republic, why is there no mention of it in either of his letters or any of his speeches, including the final ‘lecture’ at Glenrowan at a time when the Ned of Ian Jones’s creation would surely have felt that the actualization of his dream was imminent? In his last days, with his letters to the Governor of Victoria, his ‘interview’ with his legal representative David Gaunson in the Age of 9 August 1880, and even his argument with Judge Barry as the sentence of death was pronounced, Ned tried tirelessly to give himself and his life some sort of credibility, some sort of legitimacy and probably even some sort of respectability.  He seemed hopeful of an enduring place in our history, and said ‘If my life teaches the public that men are made mad by bad treatment … my life will not be entirely thrown away.’ Yet he never once mentioned or even hinted at his supposed plans for a republic which could have provided at least some mitigation for his actions. Even the greatest of Kelly biographers, and the greatest proponent of the republic theory Ian Jones concedes that Ned’s ‘clearest reference to his vision for the north-east’ came with his remark to Constable Bracken: ‘They are all damned fools to bother their heads about Parliament for this is our country (A short life p 219.)’ Hardly an unambiguous indication of republican ambition, methinks, and an echo of his remark to Scott, the bank manager at Euroa: ‘Oh, the country belongs to us. We can go where we like (A short life p 153.)’

One further question that no one seems to have asked: why there no mention of republican plans in the first major pro-Kelly Gang work by James Jerome Kenneally, The complete and inner history of the Kelly Gang and their pursuers? In the course of his research Kenneally, a journalist, Labor party activist and union organizer gained the confidence of many in the north-east of Victoria, notably Tom Lloyd Senior. The book was first published in 1929, two years after Tom Lloyd’s death. Ian Jones correctly describes the work as ‘combining deft use of Royal Commission evidence with oral tradition, much of it drawn from Tom Lloyd.’ The book is fervently pro-Kelly, but there is no mention of any republican plan, surely something that Kenneally, given his political leanings, would have utilized to the maximum to legitimize the actions of his hero. On republican matters, this book is silent. The book went through seven or so editions and stayed in print for fifty years. Kenneally died in 1949, three years after the last major participant in the drama,  Jim Kelly and long after anyone could possibly have gotten into trouble for seditious actions nearly seventy years before. But still, no republic.

MacFarlane does, however, have a suggestion as to why the republican theory has gained such credence in recent decades. Unlikely as it may seem, his line of thought parallels that of Ian Jones, but only for a short distance. According to MacFarlane (p 210) ‘the madness of Glenrowan needs all the recent dressing-up and republican inventions to explain it away.’ Jones phrases it much more temperately and provides a rationale: ‘The Glenrowan campaign is inexplicable without the central, carefully obscured fact of the republic (p 202.)’ With the moves towards a republic (stalled, however, in recent years) Australians searched in the 1970s and 1980s for iconic symbols of the past which could be first seen, and then adopted and adapted as proponents of republicanism. The Eureka Stockade (together with its flag) was one: Ned was another. Ned Kelly had charisma to burn, and some qualities of leadership, but he failed spectacularly in his efforts against the conservative and ‘natural’ order of things. His travails during his life made him ideally suited for the role as a republican symbol. But a careful examination of his travails and his anti-establishment efforts does not yield anything remotely resembling proof that he wished to establish a republic. As Kelly famously said: ‘Such is life.’

(part 1) A Review of Ian MacFarlane's The Kelly Gang Unmasked [Brian Stevenson]

Ian MacFarlane, through the good offices of the Oxford University Press, has produced an important book, the first overt anti-Kelly monograph to appear for decades. Meticulously documented, the case against Ned Kelly and his cohorts is outlined in these pages, an antidote to the countless publications since 1929 that showed sympathy towards the outlaw.    The creation of such a book was guaranteed to make the author unpopular, and it has. He has been slammed on several Kelly websites, with few voices raised in his defence. This book has been attacked in some quarters by people who boast – not that anyone should really care - that they have not read it and never will. Yet the same people admire Ned Kelly because he allegedly wanted a fair go for all! Such is the quality of the ‘debate’ and the tolerance of anti-Kelly viewpoints that prevails on some sites. Such is life, indeed.   Firstly, a note on methodology. After obtaining a copy of this book, I read it through quickly to get the broad picture. Then, I read it through very carefully a second time, making notes and checking reference sources as I went. My thoughts might not be of value to everyone, but I have done the author the courtesy of reading the volume. To those who feel compelled to comment, either with praise or condemnation, with authority on a book without reading it, I will quote the words of a famous judge and say: 'I will even give you credit for the skill that you assume.' The author has been castigated for the book’s dependence on police and conservative newspaper sources. But the same level of vituperation is not levelled against pro-Kelly authors such as Ian Jones and Keith McMenomy, whose endnotes bristle with footnoting to the very same sources. It is insulting for lay people whose publishing efforts are meagre or non-existent to accuse MacFarlane of not knowing the limitations of archival sources when he has been working with those very same sources for over twenty years. It is similarly unfair to excoriate one writer for using police and newspaper sources and leave other writers who have done the same thing unscathed.   Here is some news for some people: not every police department document created in Victoria between 1869 and 1881 was concocted or doctored to discredit the Kellys. Have a look at the 1881 Royal Commission transcripts, readily available in a few places online, and you will see a government document largely consisting of the verbatim words of police, but aimed in half a dozen different and disparate directions at discrediting members of the police department. A key source, yes, but not a pro-police one, surely.      Here is some more news: yes, the establishment newspapers (there were no other kind in 1878) were anti-Kelly. The Bulletin, not a newspaper but a somewhat anti-establishment weekly started in January 1880. While Kelly was alive they loathed him too. But it was not all one sided. As Ian Jones notes, the press were critical of the police as well. Some of the more liberal newspapers, while they never condoned the murder of police, were even capable of giving the Kellys a limited 'go' on occasion (see pages 152-154, 156-7 of A short life, 2003 edition.) After Euroa, the Age and, yes, even the ultra-conservative Argus, ‘reported, accurately enough, the glowing opinions [of the Euroa citizenry] of the Gang – especially of Ned, with high praise for his charm, good looks and horsemanship.’ (Jones, The friendship that destroyed Ned Kelly p 87.) And of course, in the weeks after Glenrowan the press applied the blowtorch to the police for their reckless endangerment of civilians during the siege.  Further, the reportage of individuals such as Allen, McWhirter and Melvin at Glenrowan have left us with as detailed and interesting a description of any event in Australian history. We are forever in their debt. Would we really be without their work? Sure, police sources and newspapers tended to be weighted against the Kellys, but proficient researchers and historians realise this and take the subtleties (and the not-so-subtleties!) of the sources into account. They get on with the job and make judicious use of them without worrying about the sneers of those who appear incapable of similar discernment, let alone writing coherent and balanced sentences based on their research.    This apart, MacFarlane, like other authors, makes much use of the words of Ned Kelly himself, both in his celebrated letters and his public utterances. Or, as the author puts it on page 231 ‘his blathering long-winded letters and occasional speeches that were filtered by his listeners and newspaper sub-editors.’   Now to the book!    The Kelly Gang unmasked promises more than it delivers. While the publisher claims that within its pages, ‘the mythology created by pro-Kelly writers is critically explored, unravelled, and often found wanting’, and the author ‘spells out the case against Ned and his gang’, the end result, while impressive in some areas, is not a total success. I did learn some things from the book, however, and was reminded of the historian David McCullough’s recent comment that if you call yourself an expert on anything, sooner or later you will run into trouble. I also add that the book has left me, after nearly fifty years looking that this story, wanting to know still more. And is that not what all books are supposed to do?  I will be looking at several aspects of this book in blog posts over the next few weeks, and the first one I want to cover is MacFarlane’s treatment of four key police identities who were involved with the Kelly pursuit, to all of their professional detriment. They are well known to most people who will be interested in reading this blog: Inspector Alexander Brooke Smith, Constable Alexander Fitzpatrick, Constable Thomas McIntyre and Constable Michael Ward. MacFarlane has tried to rehabilitate the reputations of all four, with varying degrees of success.   He states that the story that Brooke Smith confronted the Kelly girls with a threat to blow Ned ‘into pieces as small as the paper that is in our guns’ into paper is ‘easily disproved’ because the police of the time were then armed with Webleys that do not use paper cartridges. It disproves nothing of the sort: even if the threat was anachronistic it could still easily have been uttered. MacFarlane dispenses with the subject of Brooke Smith rather expeditiously in a couple of lines on page 157, leaving out any discussion of his well-documented procrastination, indecision and reticence-bordering-on-cowardice during the Kelly pursuit. You can read about them on pages 135 to 139 of A short life, 2003 edition.      MacFarlane is not at all convincing when trying to get Constable Alexander Fitzpatrick off the hook. The usual litany of official attestations to Fitzpatrick’s generally poor qualities is recited here, with the suggestion that his experience at Eleven Mile Creek might have been a factor: ‘….who can say whether or not Fitzpatrick was traumatised by the attempt to murder him and whether later events flowed from such trauma? Any person shot at three times and surrounded by men with firearms would have found the experience unforgettable.’ Well, yes, but it is a pity that the shameful treatment of the very young Ned Kelly at the hands of the brutal Constable Edward Hall, well documented in police records, did not attract a similar level of compassion from the author. More than likely Ned felt that his experience was ‘unforgettable’ too, and it was certainly not one to endear members of the Victorian police force to him. Inconsistently, MacFarlane, while showing compassion of a sort to the execrable Fitzpatrick, does not even mention Hall’s physical attack on Ned, which resulted in severe physical trauma and subsequent incarceration, and was pretty close to attempted murder.                                                                                                                                                                                           MacFarlane seeks to bolster the case for Fitzpatrick by citing a 'hitherto unpublished document' from police archives which 'seems to support' the trooper's story. Fitzpatrick applied on 24 May 1878 for a new police jumper to replace the one damaged in the affray of 15 April and being held as evidence. MacFarlane reproduces his plaintive letter to the officer in charge at Beechworth. In his local paper, the Melton Weekly on 5 November 2012 he referred to the document as 'new evidence' but it is nothing of the sort. Ian Jones reproduced it in full in the 2003 edition of A short life (page 103, 2003 edition) and it is disappointing to see that this basic source was not consulted a little more carefully.     When Fitzpatrick was discharged from the force, he was, surprisingly, the subject of a petition from a hundred prominent citizens from the Lancefield district, where he was stationed and was said to be ‘zealous, diligent, obliging and universally liked.’ MacFarlane correctly records this inexplicable incident, which remains the only bright spot in a pretty sorry police career. Further evidence will have to emerge – from God knows where – and be utilized to convince me that Fitzpatrick’s conduct as a policeman could even be deemed satisfactory.   I have never had anything but pity and regard for Constable Thomas McIntyre, who despite a terrible and traumatic experience held himself together for long enough to endure innumerable questionings and to remain in the police force until his friends were avenged. But before I read this book, I was less than enamoured with the way in which his story, particularly with regard to the death of Lonigan apparently changed. MacFarlane uses examples to show the cautious way in which he gave his numerous accounts of the Stringybark tragedy, showing, again with examples, that in almost all respects they were much more consistent than inconsistent.   The major ‘inconsistency’ and the most controversial occurred when McIntyre told Sadleir that Lonigan had been behind a log preparing to fire at Ned when the trooper received his mortal wound. This was despite his previous and first account of 27 October 1878 that Lonigan never succeeded in getting his gun out. He adhered to this version every other time that he told it for the record, except for the time he told the story to Sadleir.     According to Sadleir’s 1913 account, he interviewed McIntyre on 28 October 1878, two days after the shootings. (Jones, however, implies that this meeting took place on 29 October on page 386 of A short life, 2003 edition.) But MacFarlane provides documentation for the movements of both men on 28 October showing that a meeting between the pair on this date was extremely unlikely. He further suggests that Sadleir made a grievous error in his reminiscences and used Ned’s account of Lonigan’s death instead of McIntyre’s.    While the idea at first seems outrageous, the alternative is to accept that McIntyre told one version on 27 October, and then, for no apparent reason, gave Sadleir a second version on 28 (or maybe 29) October that placed Ned Kelly in a somewhat more favourable light. He then adhered to the first version every other time he told it. There seems no good reason for McIntyre to have given Sadleir, his superior officer, a version different from the one he gave to everyone else. Much more likely, it is entirely possible that Sadleir, thirty-five years after the event, simply used the account of the wrong man. I believe this is far more likely than Ian Jones's suggestion that Sadleir included this version of Lonigan's death in his 1913 reminiscences as a sop to his conscience and was relieved when no one noticed.     To my great surprise, Detective Ward, long regarded as one of the most odious and oleaginous characters in the Kelly saga, emerges from this book as the possible victim of some unfounded local scuttlebutt. To Kelly enthusiasts, Ward is well known as a serial seducer and impregnator of young country girls. We will never know for sure, and these oral traditions are pervasive, but the hard evidence is extremely weak. MacFarlane traces the stories to the original source – the testimony of that least trustworthy of police informers, James Wallace, who Standish described as a ‘treacherous pedagogue.’ Wallace gave evidence regarding Ward’s moral turpitude at the 1881 Royal Commission, stating that Ward had several illegitimate children. The statement was recycled by early Kelly supporter, J J Kenneally, in his book on the Gang, first published in 1929 and reprinted numerous times. Ward was questioning Wallace at the time Wallace made this declaration which Kenneally quoted. But Kenneally left out Ward’s subsequent questioning. Wallace, after repeated interrogation and challenges from Ward said that he was unable to give the name of one person who could substantiate the rumours. Whatever Ward was guilty of, the source of the rumours was unable or unwilling to provide substantiation, even though – or, perhaps, because he was – under oath. It is also interesting, albeit in the category of circumstantial evidence that the twice-married Ward never had any legitimate children. It is entirely possible that the rumours that he fathered illegitimate ones were, as MacFarlane terms them, ‘wicked lies.’    As I said at the onset of this review, this is an important book for Kelly Gang followers no matter what their take on the episode is. I will be examining MacFarlane's thoughts on the rumoured 'republic' in a further post on this blog.

Part 2 of this 3 part review has now been added at

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

Note: As a reminder, this review was written by my co-blogger Brian Stevenson. It  merely says "posted by Sharon Hollingsworth" because I loaded it for him as he has been having technical trouble on the site. Just wanted to head off any possible confusion.

Alert: Monty Wedd "Ned Kelly" newspaper comics to be published soon!

In October 2010 in only the second posting on this site I did a blog entitled "An Embarrassment of Riches" found at  http://elevenmilecreek.blogspot.com/2010/10/embarrassment-of-riches.html in which I said this:

At the top of my wish list/(book) bucket list  is what has not been published in book form - Number 770 in WTSAN - Monty Wedd's "Ned Kelly" comic strip...one hundred and forty six episodes of it...talk about sugar plums! Hopefully one day someone will finally gather and publish these comics for the enjoyment and edification of all of us. As an aside, I was recently very surprised to learn that the "Ned Kelly" comic series did NOT run in Victoria at all! Imagine that!


 Well, I just received a comment on that posting saying that the Monty Wedd "Ned Kelly" comic is going to soon be published! Thanks to the anonymous commenter who sent the info in. Now we watch and wait! Stay tuned!

http://comicoz.weebly.com/1/post/2013/01/a-hint-of-whats-aheadagreement-reached.html

Article Alert: Ned Kelly Legend to be Finally Sealed

from google alerts..

The Courier Mail of January  20, 2013 has an article entitled Ned Kelly Legend to be Finally Sealed.

It begins with:


The remains of bushranger Ned Kelly will be encased in concrete to ensure the bones are not stolen.

Family members may stand guard at the secret Kelly plot until the grave is sealed after a private ceremony this morning.

Scores of his extended family are expected to attend the service at the country cemetery in northeastern Victoria.

It follows a long-awaited funeral for the criminal, who was hanged 132 years ago.

Glenrowan and Wangaratta were abuzz with tourists and locals keen to confirm where the Kelly clan will bury him, believed to be beside his mother, Ellen, in an unmarked grave at Greta.

Some suggested the family was prepared to take extreme measures to stop any threat of his bones being exhumed by grave robbers.

"They know pouring concrete in could be the only way to ensure his body remains untouched," one source said.

"But even then I guess there is no guarantee. There are still a lot of Kelly fanatics out there."

To read more:
http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/national/ned-kelly-legend-to-be-finally-sealed/story-fndo1wyv-1226557350626

Article Alert: Hundreds Farewell Ned

from google alerts...


Hundreds farewell bushranger Ned Kelly at mass before burial
    by: Pia Akerman in Wangaratta
    From: The Australian
    January 18, 2013 1:04PM



HUNDREDS of Ned Kelly's descendants and fans paid their respects to the notorious bushranger today as his remains returned to Victoria's northeastern country for a requiem mass.

The service at St Patrick's church in Wangaratta this afternoon heard hymns and prayers for "one of the most famous, some would say infamous" Australians, whose bones were only discovered in the ruins of Pentridge Prison in 2008, 128 years after his execution.

Monsignor John White told the congregation he felt humbled and privileged to say the mass for Kelly.

"Of all Australians, Ned is without doubt one of the most famous, some would say infamous, and therein lies the great divide in society," he said. "That divide still is simmering today."

The 500-strong crowd varied from tattooed men in jeans and Ned Kelly t-shirts to elderly Wangaratta ladies coming along for their regular Friday mass, as well as members of the Kelly family who gave the Bible readings.



Even before the service began, a revolutionary spirit filled the church as the organist played "Do you hear the people sing" from Les Miserables.

Connections to the outlaw are not hard to find in Kelly country.

Brandon Gardner who attended the service said his great-grandfather had been good friends with Kelly, allowing him to hide out in a hut on his Millawa property.

"We're all Kelly sympathisers," Mr Gardner said. "This is really big to me."

It is understood the family will bury Kelly privately this weekend at Greta cemetery, where his mother Ellen also lies in an unmarked grave.

Kelly was hanged in 1880 for the murder of Thomas Lonergan, one of three policemen he killed after ambushing their camp at Stringybark Creek.

Kelly was later apprehended following a shootout with police at Glenrowan, near Wangaratta.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/hundreds-farewell-bushranger-ned-kelly-at-mass-before-burial/story-e6frg6n6-1226556624078

Article Alert: Ned Returns Home to Join His Mother

from google alerts..



Such is life: 130 years on, Ned returns home to join his mother in Kelly country

    by: JOHN FERGUSON and PIA AKERMAN
    From: The Australian
    January 16, 2013 12:00AM




More than 130 years after Ned Kelly was hanged, the bushranger will be buried in the rock-hard country he roamed as an outlaw in the 19th century.

A memorial service for the villain who personified colonial anti-authoritarianism has been scheduled for midday on Friday in regional Victoria.

Monsignor John White, the parish priest at St Patrick's Church in Wangaratta in northeast Victoria, confirmed yesterday that mass would be said for Kelly and that the service would not be confined to relatives. The family has kept details of the proceedings quiet, however, amid strong speculation the bushranger will be buried at a secret location on Sunday in the heart of Kelly country.

Sources familiar with family talks told The Australian last year that the clan had favoured the bushranger being buried at the tiny cemetery of Greta, near Glenrowan, about 185km northeast of Melbourne. However, there had been divisions in the family about the final resting place, with the argument that it should be more private.


There is deep resentment in the family about the way the bushranger and his relatives have been portrayed over the decades as a murderous, promiscuous clan that lacked a moral compass.

The Greta cemetery holds the remains of several members of the Kelly family and is in the vicinity of the gang's last stand at Glenrowan in 1880, where Kelly was captured.

From his veranda, Michael Wescombe has a clear view of the Greta cemetery and the Kelly fans who come hoping to pay their respects at the grave of Kelly's mother. The tourists are easily identified by the way they wander through the rows of graves, searching for one that is actually unmarked. "At the moment, all those people are disappointed, because they don't know what they're looking for," he said. "There is enormous interest. I believe there should at least be a map at the front gate so people know where to go."

Isolated on a country intersection, the cemetery has been tidied and nine council bins have mysteriously arrived, fuelling speculation that Kelly's remains will soon arrive. "Bury him with his mum," Mr Wescombe said. "As soon as there is a new grave here, people will know. I don't think they can keep it a secret. You drive around here, everyone is making a living out of Ned."

While Ellen Kelly's grave has no headstone or other marker, locals believe it lies in the back left corner of the cemetery, which is the Roman Catholic section. The Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine confirmed yesterday that Ned Kelly's remains were still held at its facility in Melbourne. It is believed that a funeral director will soon pick up Kelly's skeleton - minus the skull - to be shifted for the last time.

The whereabouts of Kelly's skull are unknown. Wangaratta and Glenrowan are alive with speculation about when and where the bushranger will be finally lowered into the ground.

Wangaratta funeral directors believe a Melbourne firm has been hired to transport Kelly's remains.

The family's spokesman, Anthony Griffiths, did not respond to calls from The Australian yesterday.

Gary Dean, the owner of Cobb and Co in Glenrowan, said the family "won't tell you a thing". "There's been no sense of digging at the Greta cemetery," he said. "I don't know why the hold up."

Acting Victorian Police Association secretary Bruce McKenzie said the Kelly family was entitled to bury the police killer with dignity but warned against the grave becoming a tourist attraction. "He murdered our members a long time ago," he said.

Kelly's remains were identified in 2011 after a 20-month investigation of 24 skeletons, which were exhumed from Melbourne's notorious Pentridge Prison.

Victorian property developer Leigh Chiavaroli was forced to surrender Kelly's skeleton, which the developer planned to use as part of a museum exhibit.

But the Victorian government overruled the developer's plans, drawing on the precedent set after the return in 2008 of the remains of the last man to be hanged in Melbourne, Ronald Ryan.

Kelly was hanged in 1880 after being found guilty of killing three policemen.



http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/such-is-life-130-years-on-ned-returns-home-to-join-his-mother-in-kelly-country/story-e6frg6n6-1226554699874

Article Alert: Australian Science Magazine featuring the Baxter Skull on cover

Greg Young alerted me to this.

In the January/February 2013 issue of Australian Science magazine Ned Kelly's skull is the cover story. The cover says "How Forensic Testing Solved the Mystery of Ned Kelly's Remains." The article inside the magazine entitled "Final Resting Place of an Outlaw" is one that originally appeared in the Sept/Oct 2012 issue of Archaeology magazine. Even if someone already has that magazine it would be good to add this to your collection!

http://www.australasianscience.com.au/article/issue-januaryfebruary-2013/final-resting-place-outlaw.html

Article Alert: Elder Reveals Her Ned Kelly and Don Bradman Links in Book

from google alerts.

The Fraser Coast Chronicle of January 5, 2013 has an article entitled "Elder Reveals Her Ned Kelly and Don Bradman Links in Book."


It begins with:

 The granddaughter of the Aboriginal tracker who helped capture bushranger Ned Kelly at Glenrowan, has finally revealed her life story.

Aunty Joyce Smith, the Butchulla people's oldest living elder, has spent the past three months working with local journalist Toni McRae on her book, Butchulla Marun (Butchulla Woman), which will be finished tomorrow.

Some of the anecdotes of Aunty Joyce's family link the Butchulla story with iconic Australian figures.

"My grandfather Gary Owen, a stockman from K'gari, Fraser Island, was hired by Hervey Bay's police sergeant Tommy King to go down to Victoria in pursuit of Ned Kelly," she said.

"But grandfather, who was my mother Maidie Owen's dad, never got the money they promised him. Sadly, when he was older the government shunted him off to Barambah mission, which is now known as Cherbourg, and he died there of a broken heart.


To read more (though that is all there is on the Kelly connection) see:

http://www.frasercoastchronicle.com.au/news/elder-reveals-her-ned-kelly-bradman-links/1706544/

Magazine Alert: Ned Kelly in Jan/Feb 2013 INSIDE HISTORY

The January/February 2013 issue of Inside History has Ned Kelly as the cover story.

From the Inside History site:

From Australia’s most iconic bushranger through to First Fleet convicts and 1930s murder mysteries, Issue 14 of Inside History takes a walk through the dark alleyways and shady backstreets of our nation’s past.

Of the many outlaws and legends you’ll encounter in Issue 14, Ned Kelly — our cover boy — is one of the most famous, divisive and intriguing. In an exclusive interview, we hear from a descendant of Ned’s alleged secret love, who puts forward his case and reveals his spine-tingling discoveries about the Kelly gang.

To see the cover and to find out how/where to get this issue:

http://www.insidehistory.com.au/current-issue/

Thanks to google alerts and Achockablog for the heads up.

http://www.achuka.co.uk/achockablog/archives/2013/01/inside-history-.html