While he was growing up, his family was often in trouble with the police. After fighting a policeman at his home in 1878, Kelly went to the bush to hide. He murdered three policemen who were searching for him. The government made Ned, his brother, and two friends outlaws. They became known as the Kelly Gang. Ned Kelly led the gang to rob a number of banks, and even capture a whole town. A final violent fight with police took place at Glenrowan. Kelly, dressed in home-made metal armour and helmet, was captured and sent to trial. Found guilty, he was hanged at the Melbourne Gaol in 1880.
A painting of Kelly by Australian artist Sidney Nolan was sold in 2010 for AU$5.4 million, the highest price ever paid for an Australian painting.
Edward 'Ned' Kelly was born in Canadia, north of Melbourne, in June 1855. The actual date is not known because the birth was not registered on the government list of births, deaths and marriages in Victoria. His prison records give the date as 1856. He was the son of Irish Catholic parents, John "Red" Kelly and Ellen Quinn. Red Kelly had been a convict who had been sent to Van Diemen's Land in 1842 for stealing two pigs. He moved to Victoria in 1848. He met Ellen Quinn, who had come to Victoria from Ireland with her family in 1841. Red started working for Ellen's father, James Quinn, who was a farmer at Beveridge. Ned was probably born at his grandfather's house. Around 1860, Red built a small house for his family, which is still standing in Kelly Street.
When Ned was about nine, his father moved the family north to a new farm at Avenel. Ned saved a young boy, Richard Shelton, from drowning in Hughes Creek. The Shelton family, who owned the Royal Mail Hotel, gave Ned a sash made from green silk for his bravery. The sash was long and wide. He was wearing this sash under his armour when he was captured at Glenrowan. The sash, still covered in Ned Kelly's blood, is now kept in the Benalla Museum. Red was not a successful farmer and was soon arrested for stealing cattle. In May 1866, he was given one month in prison and had to pay a fine of £25. Red died on 27 December 1866, and is buried in the Avenel Cemetery.
Ellen Kelly moved the family to Greta. There were other members of Ellen's family living in the area. Her father, James Quinn, had moved from Beveridge to a large farm, called Glenmore, on the King River in north east Victoria. Her sisters, Catherine and Jane, and their ten children, were farming at Greta. Their husbands, brothers John and Thomas Lloyd, were in prison for stealing cattle. When Ellen came to Greta, her brothers, James, William and John Quinn, moved from Glenmore to help the sisters and their families. Some of the Quinn family had also been sent to prison for cattle stealing. James, Ellen's brother, had been charged ten times for cattle stealing. In 1868, Red Kelly's brother, James Kelly, came to visit Ellen. He got drunk and after an argument with the sisters, tried to burn their house down. He was given the death penalty, but this was later changed to 15 years in prison. The police thought the whole family were trouble makers and criminal.
Ellen Kelly and her children moved to a farm on the Eleven Mile Creek, between Greta and Glenrowan. Ned Kelly started work cutting down trees, breaking in horses, herding cattle and putting up fences.
On 14 October 1869, 14-year-old Ned was arrested for stealing money from a Chinese man. Kelly spent ten days in the police station lockup but there was not enough proof to send Ned to court and he had to be set free. Ned also worked in the bush with ex-convict Harry Power.
Power had escaped from a Melbourne Gaol and started bushranging. Kelly was arrested in May 1870 for helping Power to rob people. He was kept in the gaol at Kyneton for seven weeks. Soon after this, Ned was in trouble again. With his uncle, Jack Lloyd, Ned had got into a fight with a hawker (a traveling salesman). They then sent a rude letter and some calf's testicles to the hawker's wife. In October 1870 he was sent to Beechworth gaol for assault and for being rude to a lady. He spent five months in Gaol.
Just three weeks after getting out of Gaol in April 1871, 16-year-old Ned was arrested again. He had ridden a friend's horse into Greta. He did not know that his friend, Isaiah "Wild Wright", had stolen the horse from the Mansfield post office. There was a fight when a policeman, Constable Hall, tried to arrest him. Hall tried to shoot Kelly three times, but his gun would not work so he hit him over the head with it instead. Kelly was sent to Pentridge Gaol in Melbourne. After four months he was moved to the prison ship, "Sacramento", at Williamstown. Prison ships were old ships that were used as extra prison space. Prisoners from the "Sacremento" worked during the day building a sea wall at Williamstown beach. They also worked on building a fort for the guns that were protecting Port Phillip Bay. Kelly was released from prison on 2 February 1874.
In August, Kelly met his friend "Wild Wright" in Beechworth. He must have been angry with Wright because of the stolen horse which had put him in prison. Behind the Imperial Hotel, they fought a bare knuckle boxing match that lasted for 20 rounds. Wright said later that "...he gave me the hiding of my life." In September 1877, Kelly was arrested in Benalla, for being drunk, riding on a footpath and resisting arrest. Kelly escaped from the police while they were taking him to the courthouse. After a fight with the police, he ran across the road into a boot shop and locked the door. Kelly gave himself up when the judge came over to the shop. One of the policemen involved in the fight to arrest Kelly was Thomas Lonigan. Lonigan was later shot dead by Kelly at Stringybark Creek.
Constable Fitzpatrick was in charge of the small police station in Greta. Because of the Kelly family's long history of criminal activity, Police Superintendent C. H. Nicholson had given orders that the police were not to go to the Kelly's house alone. But Fitzpatrick decided he would 'fix the Greta mob'. In April 1878, he went to the house to arrest Ned's brother, Dan Kelly for horse stealing. Dan had only been recently let out of prison. Fitzpatrick was probably drunk, as he had stopped at the Winton hotel to drink brandy. Dan Kelly refused to go back to the police station with Fitzpatrick, because the policeman did not have a warrant, the official document needed to make an arrest. Fitzpatrick then tried to make Kate, Ned's 15-year-old sister, sit on his knee so he could kiss her. This started a fight with members of the family and Fitzpatrick hurt his wrist. He and Ellen, Kate's mother, agreed to forget what had happened. But when Fitzpatrick went back to the Benalla police station he said Ned had shot at him three times and Ellen Kelly had hit him on the head with a shovel. Fitzpatrick lost his job with the police in 1881 after the head of the police force said he was a "liar".
A group of police led by Sergeant Steele went back to Greta, and arrested Ellen Kelly (with her baby Alice King), her son-in-law William Skillion, and a neighbour, William "Bricky" Williamson, for the attempted murder of Constable Fitzpatrick. Ned and Dan Kelly were not at the house and could not be arrested. Ellen Kelly said that Ned was not involved, and that he was working away. After a trial in Beechworth, Ellen Kelly was sentenced by Judge Redmond Barry to three years in prison for trying to kill Constable Fitzpatrick. Skillion and Williamson were given six years in prison. The police offered a reward of £100 for the capture of the Kelly brothers. In 1881 Williamson was let out of prison and given a full pardon because the government knew that he was innocent.