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Ned Kelly has progressed from outlaw to national hero in a century, and to international icon in a further 20 years. The still-enigmatic, slightly saturnine and ever-ambivalent bushranger is the undisputed, if not universally admired, national symbol of Australia.
Sep 12, 2024 · Ned Kelly, most famous of the bushrangers, Australian rural outlaws of the 19th century. He was the leader of the Kelly gang, who perpetrated a series of daring robberies in the Victoria-New South Wales borderland (1878–80) that captured the imagination of the public.
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Jan 20, 2013 · To many Australians, Ned Kelly, the son of poor Irish Catholics, was a heroic anti-establishment figure who fought corrupt British colonists in the 19th Century. To others, he was a vicious...
- He Was A Bushranger
- His Dad Went to Australia as A Convict
- The Rest of His Family Moved to Australia Willingly
- He Was One of 7 Children
- He Was First Arrested Aged 14
- He Was A Boxing Champion
- His Family Were All Under Observation
- He Dictated An 8,000 Word Statement to Justify His Actions
- The Kelly Gang’S Final Job Was Undermined by A Released Hostage
- His Final Words Are Subject to Speculation
A bandit. An outlaw. A bushranger is a criminal inhabiting the Australian bush. The term was coined early in the 19th century, when it was unique to the Australian colonies. Bushranging peaked between the 1850s and 1870s whilst gold was being transported by road during the Australian Gold Rush. The crimes of bushrangers varied between the highway r...
Ned Kelly’s father, John or ‘Red’, arrived in Van Diemen’s Land – now known as Tasmania – in 1842. ‘Red’ was transported aged 21 for pig theft in County Tipperary, Ireland. He moved to Victoria, on the mainland, in 1848. John maintained that he was the victim of English imperialism in Ireland, a view which he imparted on his son. In his Jerilderie ...
Ned’s mother, Ellen Kelly (nee. Quinn) arrived in Port Phillip, Victoria, in July 1841 with her family. From County Antrim, the ten Quinns were assisted passengers – they had their voyage subsidised by the colonial government. The Quinns moved inland to Wallan, which is where Ellen caught the eye of ‘Red’ Kelly. The couple married in 1850 and bough...
Born Edward in June 1855, Ned was the third of eight children born to Ellen and ‘Red’, and the first boy.
In 1869, Ned was arrested for an alleged assault of Ah Fook, a Chinese salesman. According to the accusation, Kelly had initiated the altercation by declaring himself a bushranger, and had stolen 10 shillings. According to Kelly, he had simply come to his sister’s defence, and had been beaten with a stick by the salesman. This version of events was...
Ned was photographed by a Melbourne photographer in a boxing stance in 1874, after winning a bare-knuckle match at the Imperial Hotel, Beechworth. He had been fighting Isaiah ‘Wild’ Wright, for whose crime of ‘borrowing’ a horse Ned had been imprisoned for 3 years with hard labour. This was his longest spell in prison until his final capture. As un...
Despite the Quinn’s being free immigrants, the entire extended family was subject to increasing attention by the police. Ellen was notorious for her violent temper as she struggled to raise 7 children alone during her husband’s imprisonment for stealing a calf in 1865, and again after his death in 1866. She was the defendant in several court appear...
Ned Kelly’s ‘Jerilderie letter’ was written in 1879 during the Kelly Gang’s holding up of a bank in the town of Jerilderie. The original letter’s whereabouts are unknown, but copies were made by a Crown Law clerk. They begin: It details parts of his life going back as far as 1870, and ends: By the time Ned wrote this letter, there was a £1,000 rewa...
During a plan to wreck a special police train on the 29 June 1880, the Kelly Gang took possession of a hotel at Glenrowan. The 60 people inside became hostages. Ned allowed a schoolmaster, Thomas Curnow, to leave the hotel with his wife, child and sister. It was Curnow who alerted the police of the plan. As a result, the police were able to avoid c...
Famously, Ned Kelly’s final words were ‘such is life.’ Other accounts, however, suggest that he said ‘Ah, well, I suppose it has come to this’, or alternatively said nothing at all. Intrigue around Kelly did not stop with his death. A six month review into police conduct took place in 1881 and resulted in 36 reform recommendations, some of which wo...
May 26, 2024 · Ned Kelly, the infamous bushranger, has become a symbol of rebellion and anti-establishment sentiment in Australian folklore. His life and crimes have been the subject of countless books, films, and songs, cementing his status as one of the most recognizable figures in the nation‘s history.
Sep 18, 2023 · There's no denying that Ned Kelly was a notorious criminal, feared around Victoria and beyond as a robber and murderer. However, while it is not known how many sympathisers Kelly had in his day, over time a national myth emerged that pitched Kelly as a victim of police harassment and an underdog with the courage to challenge the authorities.
Sep 1, 2011 · Ned Kelly is Australia’s most loved and infamous bushranger. Many Aussies believe his last words before his 1880 hanging in a Melbourne jail were “such is life”. That’s a myth, but it does represent the easygoing Aussie ethos.
