Ned Kelly

**Edward "Ned" Kelly** (3 June 1855 – 11 November 1880) was an Australian bushranger. He has become a  figure in Australian history, folklore, books, art and movies. As a national icon, his image was used during the opening ceremony of the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney.

While he was growing up, his family was often in  with the police. After fighting a policeman at his home in 1878, Kelly went  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.

## Early life 
### Beveridge 
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  two pigs. He moved to Victoria in 1848. He met Ellen Quinn, who had come to Victoria from Ireland with her family in 1841.

### Avenel
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. gave Ned a sash made from green silk for his . The sash was  long and  wide. He was wearing this sash under his armour when he was  at Glenrowan.

### Gaol 
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. After four months he was moved to the prison ship, *Sacramento*, at Williamstown. 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.  In 1881 Williamson was let out of prison and given a full pardon because the government knew that he was innocent. a mountain range between Greta and Mansfield. One group started south from Greta led by Senior Constable Strahan. Strahan said he would shoot the Kellys down like dogs. They had stopped at Faithful Creek station (a farm) and held the people there prisoners. They locked 22 people including farm workers, hawkers (traveling salesmen) and visitors into a storeroom. Joe Byrne kept guard while the rest of the gang went into Euroa. They went to the bank and said they had a message from McCauley, the farm manager. They got into the bank and held up the bank's manager Robert Scott, along with two tellers (bank workers). After taking all the money, the gang forced Scott, his wife, family, maids and tellers to go with them back to Faithful Creek.

### Jerilderie 
The police increased the reward on the Kelly Gang. More police were sent to guard banks in the country. Friends of the Kellys were locked in gaol. The gang crossed the Murray River and rode  north into New South Wales. They arrived in Jerilderie on Saturday 8 February 1879. They broke into the local police station and locked the two policemen, Richards and Devine, in the police cells. The outlaws put on police uniforms and mixed with the local people. They said that they were extra police from Sydney, who had come to guard the town from the Kelly gang. Ned Kelly took his horse to the blacksmith to get new horseshoes and told the man to send the bill to the New South Wales police force. On Monday the gang rounded up various people and forced them into the back room of the Royal Mail Hotel. While Dan Kelly and Steve Hart kept the hostages busy with "drinks on the house" (free drinks), Ned Kelly and Joe Byrne went to the telegraph office and cut down some of the poles and cut the wires.

For the next 18 months the police were not able to find the Kelly gang. They punished anyone they thought might be helping the gang. More than 20 people were locked up in the Beechworth Prison for three months only because they were said to be friends of the gang. None of these people were ever charged with a crime. The government thought the Kelly gang might try and free their friends, so they put up large iron gates on the entrance to the prison. Living kept the letter, which was not re-discovered until 1930. It was then published by the *Melbourne Herald*. The handwritten letter was given to the State Library of Victoria in 2000.  Kelly's words are colorful, rough and full of metaphors. He said the police were "... big ugly fat-necked wombat headed big bellied magpie legged narrow hipped splay footed sons of Irish bailiffs or English landlords ...". The bushrangers, wearing homemade armour, would then capture any of the policemen that were alive after the crash. which was about half his body weight. The police fired their guns into the building for seven hours. It is estimated that 15,000 bullets were fired during the shooting. The police ordered a cannon from Melbourne so that they could destroy the inn, The police had one small injury; the police Superintendent, Francis Hare, received a wound to his wrist, then fled the battle. The Royal Commission set up to examine the Kelly Gang later removed Hare from the Victoria Police.

### Trial and execution 
Ned Kelly was taken to the Melbourne Gaol where he was treated for his wounds. He was visited by his mother who was in the same prison for wounding Constable Fitzpatrick.

Many people did not agree with the death sentence. A petition with more than 60,000 names asked the government for mercy. Several newspapers including *The Age* and *The Herald* reported Kelly's last words as "Such is life". Sir Redmond Barry died after a short illness on 23 November, 1880, only 12 days after Kelly's death.

### Re-burial and recent DNA testing 
Following his death, a death mask of Ned Kelly was made. It required the shaving of his beard to make it. Afterwards, Ned Kelly was buried in an unmarked grave at the Melbourne Gaol, in an area with other criminals who had also been hanged at the gaol. DNA testing has proved that one set of bones was the skeleton of Ned Kelly. Experts from the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine said that the DNA clearly matches one of Kelly's living relatives. The bones show some of the injuries Kelly got during the shoot out with the police. The Kelly skeleton does not have a skull. On the anniversary of Ned Kelly's hanging, 11 November 2009, a farmer from Western Australia gave a skull back to Heritage Victoria which he said had been taken from the gaol. It was tested for DNA to see if it was Ned Kelly's skull. These tests showed it was not, and the location of Kelly's skull is still unknown. During the service, family members who read from the Bible wore a green silk sash. Relatives of Constable Michael Scanlon and Aaron Sherrit also attended the service. Kelly was buried in an unmarked grave at Greta on 20 January 2013. His story has been told in books, movies, plays and television shows. His image has been used for everything from cakes to tattoos. A recent study showed that people with a Ned Kelly tattoo were eight times more likely to be murdered. In 2010 the National Gallery of Victoria paid AU$2.2 million for a painting of Ned Kelly by artist Sidney Nolan. It was Nolan's paintings of Ned Kelly that inspired the opening ceremony of the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. It was also claimed that in 1928 they had found a suit of armour buried on the football ground. This book won the Man Booker Prize in 2001.
* *Our Sunshine* by Robert Drewe, 2001. This novel was used as the basis of Gregor Jordan's movie *Ned Kelly*.

### Music 
* *Ned Kelly* the Rock Opera by Reg Livermore and Patrick Flynn.
* *Ned Kelly* by US country singer Johnny Cash, on his album *The Man in Black*, 1971
* *Our Sunshine* by Paul Kelly, 1999
* *Game as Ned Kelly* by Slim Dusty
* *Ned Kelly* by Ashley Davies, 2001
* *Ned Kelly* by Waylon Jennings, 1970
* *Poor Ned* by Australian band Redgum, 1978
* *If Ned Kelly was King* by Midnight Oil, 1983
* *Kate Kelly* by the Whitlams, 2002
* *Ballad of Ned Kelly* by Trevor Lucas performed by Fotheringay
* *Shelter for my Soul* written and recorded by Powderfinger's Bernard Fanning for the 2003 movie *Ned Kelly* and played over the movie's closing credits.

### Movie and television 
* *The Story of the Kelly Gang* 1906, the world's first feature-length film (70 minutes). 
* *The Kelly Gang*, written, produced and directed by Harry Southwell, 1920. Only short pieces of movie and some photos are left of this two hour movie.
* *When the Kellys Were Out*, written, produced and directed by Harry Southwell, 1923.
* *The Stringybark Massacre*, by independent movie maker Garry Shead, 1967. This 10 minute movie was to be part of a longer Ned Kelly movie.
* *Ned Kelly*, a movie directed by Tony Richardson and starring Mick Jagger, (1970). The armour used in this movie can be seen at the Braidwood museum.
* *The Last Outlaw*, script by Ian Jones and Bronwyn Binns, a four-part television mini-series, 1980. Starred John Jarrat as Ned Kelly, Sigrid Thornton as Kate Kelly, and Steve Bisley as Joe Byrne.
* *Reckless Kelly*, written, directed and starring Yahoo Serious, 1993.
* *Ned Kelly* directed by Gregor Jordan and starring Heath Ledger, 2003
* *Ned* a low budget satire written, directed and starring Abe Forsythe, 2003.
* *Besieged: The Ned Kelly Story*, starring Peter Fenton, a television documentary, 2003
** Ned Kelly Uncovered*, documentary with Tony Robinson

### Theatre 
* *Catching the Kellys*, written by Joseph Pickersgill, performed in Melbourne in 1879.
* *The Kelly Gang*, by Reg Rede, performed in Victoria in 1896.
* *Such Is Life* – a ballet by Edward Borovansky with music by Verdon Williams, performed in Sydney in 1951
* *The Jerilderie Letter* written by Peter Finlay, performed in Melbourne in 2007
* *Quilting the Armour*, the Kelly story through the eyes of its women. First performed at the Old Melbourne Gaol in 2006.

### Plants 
* Grevillea Ned Kelly – a small shrub of the grevillea family, about  tall, green leaves, with orange to red flowers

## References 
## Other websites 
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* Australia's Heritage: Ned Kelly's story across collections
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