Key Events

Key Events – a Brief History

Beginnings

The third of eight children, Edward ‘Ned’ Kelly was born in Beveridge, 55 km north of Melbourne, between December 1854 and June 1855 (the exact date is unknown) to John ‘Red’ Kelly and Ellen Kelly (formerly Quinn). John Kelly was a former convict, transported from Ireland to Van Diemen’s land for seven years for the theft of two pigs.
The family moved to a farm at Avenel, 114 km north of Melbourne, when Ned was about eight years old. Ned Kelly was presented with a green sash for his bravery in saving seven-year-old Richard Shelton from drowning in Hughes Creek at Avenel.
John Kelly died aged 46 in 1866. Ellen Kelly moved with her children to Greta near Wangaratta to be close to her own extended family.

Ned Kelly and the Law

In 1869, at 14, Kelly was arrested for allegedly assaulting a Chinese man. He was arrested again the following year suspected of being an accomplice of the bushranger Harry Power. The assault charge was dismissed and the accomplice charges with Power were also dropped after witnesses were unable to identify Kelly.
In 1871 he served three months for assaulting a travelling salesman, and later that year received a three-year prison sentence at Beechworth Gaol and Pentridge Gaol in Melbourne for receiving a stolen horse.
In the following years he worked as a timber cutter and farm labourer and also allegedly worked with a network involved in the theft and sale into NSW of livestock and horses.
In 1877 he was charged and fined for being drunk and disorderly and resisting arrest in Benalla.
In April 1878 Ned and his younger brother Dan Kelly were involved in an incident at the family’s Greta farm where Constable Fitzpatrick, bringing a warrant for Dan Kelly’s arrest signed at the Chiltern police station, attempted to arrest him for horse
theft. Fitzpatrick reported that he had been shot in the wrist by Ned Kelly and assaulted with a shovel by their mother Ellen who spent the next three years at the Beechworth Gaol for the attempted murder of the police officer. Also caught up in the incident were William Williamson, a neighbour of the Kelly family and Ellen Kelly’s son in law, William Skillion who each received six years hard labour.
Ned and Dan Kelly, now wanted by police for the assault on Fitzpatrick, went into hiding at a site at Bullock Creek in the Wombat Ranges above Benalla where they were later joined by friends, Joe Byrne and Steve Hart.
Police sought the fugitives and requested a Detective from Melbourne to help discover their whereabouts. Two organised searches began, departing from Mansfield and Greta.

Stringybark Creek

The four were declared outlaws and a warrant and reward of two thousand pounds each was issued for their capture ‘dead or alive’ after they ambushed a police patrol at Stringybark Creek on 24 October 1878.
They murdered three police officers that day – Sergeant Michael Kennedy and Constables Michael Scanlan and Thomas Lonigan. Constable Thomas McIntyre escaped the scene to raise the alarm in Mansfield by the following day, sparking a massive police search.
Aboriginal Trackers were locally recruited to assist, and in March 1879 a contingency of Qld Native Mounted Police arrived in Victoria to track the outlaws.
At large with the help of ‘sympathisers’ who kept the fugitives informed of police movements and assisted with food and supplies, the Gang evaded capture for nearly two years, carrying out a series of high-profile robberies in the North East and border country.
The story of the manhunt and various criminal activities carried out by the Gang went viral. There was intensive media coverage of events thanks to the latest illustrative newspaper technologies and the telegraph, the events capturing the public imagination with up-to-date reporting and commentary as the drama unfolded. The cult of celebrity surrounding Ned Kelly was born.

Robberies

During their time on the run from police, the four carried out a series of major robberies of homesteads and banks, in Euroa (10 December 1878) and Jerilderie (Saturday, 8 February 1879), taking not just cash and gold, but also holding dozens of bystanders hostage at gunpoint.
Around the time of the Jerilderie bank robbery Ned Kelly dictated an 8000-word letter to Joe Byrne justifying his actions. He instructed bank teller Edward Living to give it to the local newspaper editor for publication but Living instead handed it to police. Only excerpts of the letter were published during Kelly’s lifetime. The Jerilderie Letter was not published in full until 1930.
On 26 June 1880 Joe Byrne, accompanied by Dan Kelly, shot dead his childhood friend, Aaron Sherritt, in the doorway of his home in Woolshed Creek near Eldorado, suspecting him of being a police informant.

The “Last Stand”

Two days later, on Sunday 28 June, the Gang headed to Glenrowan near Wangaratta, holding hostages at the local inn, and waiting for a special contingent of police and Qld Native Mounted Police trackers to arrive by train the next day. The Gang planned to derail the train and kill any police who survived the crash. This plan was foiled when local schoolmaster, Thomas Curnow, escaped the Glenrowan Inn and flagged the train down before it reached the damaged tracks.
Wearing the now iconic armour they had fashioned from heavy iron ploughs, the outlaws confronted the police in a shootout that ultimately claimed Joe Byrne’s life and two of the hostages held inside, Martin Cherry and Johnny Jones who were killed by stray police bullets.
Steve Hart and Dan Kelly were barricaded inside the inn when police set fire to it in an attempt to flush them out. They were both later found deceased inside.
During the siege, one police officer was shot in the wrist and a Qld Native Mounted Police officer suffered a facial injury when he was grazed by a bullet.
Ned Kelly was wounded multiple times but captured alive. Under the armour, he was found to be wearing the sash presented to him as a boy in Avenel.

Trial and Execution

Ned Kelly was taken to Beechworth Courthouse for a committal hearing on 6 August 1880 where he was ordered to stand trial for the murder of Constable Lonigan at the Melbourne Central Criminal Court.
Kelly was found guilty of the murder of Constable Lonigan and sentenced to hang by Justice Redmond Barry. He was executed, aged 25, at the Melbourne Gaol on 11 November 1880.