Ned Kelly was born in Wallan,
Victoria in 1855, to
Irish parents. His father had been a
convict and instilled in his son a sense of
opposition to the
authorities. In his early teens he was an associate of an experienced
bushranger, Harry Power.
By the time he was fifteen, Kelly had been arrested three times and convicted once for using
obscene language. He was imprisoned for a short while and the following year convicted of
horse theft. Three years were served, mainly in Pentridge
Prison. Upon his release he began a large-scale livestock theft operation.
Kelly had a younger sister Kate, who was seeing a
police officer named Alexander Fitzpatrick. In 1878 Fitzpatrick visited Kelly's house to arrest Ned's brother Dan on a charge of horse stealing. A
quarrel broke out, and Ned ended up shooting Fitzpatrick in the
wrist. Two of Ned's brothers managed to escape, but his
mother was arrested.
Ned Kelly fled to the Wombat
Mountains, where he teamed up with his friends, Steve Hart and Joe Byrne, in a career as a bushranger. During this period Ned got wind of the fact that his mother was being ill-treated by police, and he vowed
revenge. His hatred of
authority intensified. He described officials as "big ugly fat-necked
wombat-headed big-bellied
magpie-legged narrow-hipped splay-footed sons of Irish
Bailiffs or English
landlords which is better known as officers of
Justice or Victorian Police."
A famous incident took place in October 1878 between the members of the Kelly gang and four policement at Stringybark
Creek. Kelly spotted their camp and shot three officers in cold blood. The
upper classes saw this act as
murderous and
cruel, but among the
working classes he received a lot of sympathy and rose quickly to the status of a
hero.
Ballads were sung about the gang that wore armour and helmets of
metal.
In north-eastern Victoria the Kelly gang had many supporters, and this enabled them to evade police for eighteen months after two bank robberies in December of 1878 and February of 1879.
The Kelly gang were finally stopped during preparations in
Glenrowan Inn for
train hold-up. Ned's three companions were shot
dead but Ned was captured and tried for the
murder of one of the policemen from Stingybark Creek. Upon hearing his
sentence of
death, Ned is reported to have said to
Judge Barry, "I will see you there where I go."
Over sixty thousand people signed a
petition to have Ned’s sentence reprieved, but the Executive Council upheld Judge Barry's decision and Kelly was taken to Melbourne Gaol.
Kelly's most famous words were the last ones he spoke before his hanging on 11 November 1880. As he stood with the noose around his neck, Ned uttered the words "Such is life." Judge Barry died twelve days later.
Today, Ned Kelly and his gang are
icons of Australian
history. Numerous ballads, films, plays, novels, paintings and television series have told their story, and they are a major
topic of
historical studies in
Australia.