User:Aemilius Adolphin/Ned Kelly draft2

Family background and early life
Kelly's father, John Kelly (known as "Red"), was born in 1820 at Clonbrogan, near Moyglas, County Tipperary, Ireland. At the age of 21, he was found guilty of stealing two pigs and was transported on the Prince Regent, arriving at Hobart Town, Van Diemen's Land on 2 January 1842. After finishing his sentence in January 1848, Red Kelly moved to Victoria and found work at James Quinn's farm at Wallan Wallan as a bush carpenter.

On 18 November 1850, Red Kelly married Ellen Quinn, his employer's 18-year-old daughter, at St Francis Church, Father Gerard Ward officiating. The couple subsequently turned their attention to gold-digging, and earned enough to buy a small freehold in Beveridge, just north of Melbourne.

Edward ("Ned") Kelly was his parents' third child. The exact date of his birth is not known, but was probably in December 1854. Ned Kelly was possibly baptised by an Augustinian priest, Charles O'Hea, who also administered last rites to Kelly before his execution. Red and Ellen had seven other children: Mary Jane (born 1851, died as an infant aged 6 months), Annie (later Annie Gunn) (1853-1872), Margaret (later Margaret Skillion) (1857-1896), James ("Jim", 1859-1946), Daniel ("Dan", 1861-1880), Catherine ("Kate", later Kate Foster) (1863-1898) and Grace (later Grace Griffiths) (1865-1940).

Ned made his first court appearance at Beveridge, giving evidence, age eight, in favour of his uncle, Jim Kelly, who was convicted of stealing cattle. The family did not prosper at Beveridge and Red began drinking heavily.

In 1864, the family moved to Avenel, near Seymour, where they soon attracted the attention of local police. As a boy Kelly obtained basic schooling and became familiar with the bush. In Avenel he risked his life to save another boy from drowning in Hughes Creek; the boy's family gave him a green sash, which he wore under his armour during his final showdown with police in 1880.

In 1865, Red was convicted in relation to the theft of a calf and sentenced to a fine of ₤25 or six months' hard labour. Although the family could not afford to pay the fine, there is no record of him being transferred to Kilmore Gaol. In December 1866 Red was fined for being drunk and disorderly. Badly affected by alcoholism, he died at Avenel on 27 December 1866.

The following year, the Kellys moved to Greta, in north-eastern Victoria, near the Quinns and their relatives by marriage the Lloyds. In 1868 Ned's uncle Jim Kelly was convicted of arson after setting fire to the rented premises where the Kellys and some of the Lloyds were staying. Jim Kelly was sentenced to death, but this was later commuted to 15 years of hard labour.

The family soon took up a small farm of 88 acre at Eleven Mile Creek near Greta. (The farm was leased from the government under the Land Act, giving the family an option to buy once the land was successfully cleared and cultivated and other conditions met. This type of farm was known as a "selection" and those leasing it "selectors".) The Kelly land was probably unsuitable for successful farming, and Ellen supplemented her income by offering accommodation to travellers and illegally selling alcohol.

Bushranging with Harry Power
In 1869, aged fourteen, Kelly met Irish-born Harry Power (alias of Henry Johnson), a transported convict who turned to bushranging in north-eastern Victoria after escaping Melbourne's Pentridge Prison. The Kellys formed part of his network of sympathisers, and by May 1869, Ned had become his bushranging protégé. At the end of the month, they attempted to steal horses from the Mansfield property of squatter John Rower as part of a plan to rob the Woods Point–Mansfield gold escort. They abandoned the idea and fled back into the bush after Rower shot at them, and Kelly temporarily broke off his association with Power.

Kelly's first brush with the law occurred in mid-October 1869 over an altercation between him and a Chinese pig- and fowl-dealer from Morses Creek named Ah Fook. According to Fook, as he passed the Kelly family home, Ned brandished a long stick and declared himself a bushranger before robbing him of 10 shillings. Kelly gave evidence in court that Fook had abused his sister Annie in a dispute over Fook's request for a drink of water. Fook then beat Ned with a stick after he came to his sister's defence. Annie and two family-related witnesses corroborated Ned's story and the charge was dismissed.

Kelly reconciled with Power in March 1870, and, over the next month, the pair committed a series of armed robberies as police scrambled to find them and identify Power's young accomplice. By the end of April, the press had named Kelly as the culprit, and a few days later, he was captured by police and confined to Beechworth Gaol. Kelly fronted court on three separate robbery charges, the first two of which were dismissed as none of the victims could positively identify him. On the third charge, the victims also reportedly failed to identify Kelly, but they were in fact refused a chance to identify him by Superintendents Nicolas and Hare. Instead, Nicolas told the magistrate Kelly fitted the description and asked for him to be remanded for trial. He was sent to Melbourne where he spent the weekend in a lock-up before being transferred to Kyneton to face court. No evidence was produced in court, and he was released after a month. Historians tend to disagree over this episode: some see it as evidence of police harassment; others believe the Kelly family intimidated the witnesses, making them reluctant to give evidence. Another factor in the lack of identification may have been that the witnesses had described Power's accomplice as a "half-caste" (a person of Aboriginal and European descent). However, the police believed this to be the result of Kelly going unwashed.

Power often camped at Glenmore Station, a large property owned by Kelly's maternal grandfather, James Quinn, which sat at the headwaters of the King River. In June 1870, while resting in a mountainside gunyah (bark shelter) that overlooked the property, Power was captured by a police search party. Following Power's arrest, word spread within the community that Kelly had informed on him. Kelly denied the rumour, and in a letter that bears the only surviving example of his handwriting, he pleads with Sergeant James Babington of Kyneton for help, saying that "everyone looks on me like a black snake". The informant turned out to be Kelly's uncle, Jack Lloyd, who received £500 for his assistance. However, Kelly had also given information which led to Power's capture and it is possible that the charges against him were dropped in exchange for this information. Power always believed that Kelly was responsible for the betrayal.

Reporting on Power's criminal career, the Benalla Ensign wrote:

"The effect of his example has already been to draw one young fellow into the open vortex of crime, and unless his career is speedily cut short, young Kelly will blossom into a declared enemy of society."

Horse theft, assault and imprisonment
In October 1870, a hawker, Jeremiah McCormack, accused a friend of the Kellys, Ben Gould, of stealing his horse. Gould wrote an indecent note to give to McCormack's childless wife, that was used to wrap two calves' testicles. Kelly passed it to one of his cousins to give to the woman. When McCormack confronted Kelly later that day, Kelly punched him in the nose, causing McCormack to fall. Kelly was arrested for his part in sending the calves' parts and the note and for assaulting McCormack. He was sentenced to three months' hard labour on each charge.

Kelly was released from Beechworth Gaol on 27 March 1871, five weeks early, and returned to Greta. Three weeks later, horse-breaker Isaiah "Wild" Wright arrived in town to see his friend Alex Gunn, a Scottish miner who had married Kellys' older sister. Wright was riding a chestnut mare which he had "borrowed" without telling the owner, the postmaster of Mansfield. Kelly later claimed that he was unaware that the horse didn't belong to Wright. According to Kelly, the mare went missing that night and Gunn lent Wright one of his own horses, promising that, if he found the mare, he would keep it until Wright returned. Kelly said that as soon after Wright departed, the mare was found by Gunn and a neighbour, William (Bricky) Williamson. Kelly then took the mare to Wangaratta, where he stayed for four days. On 20 April 1871, while riding back into Greta, Kelly was intercepted by Constable Edward Hall, who suspected that the horse was stolen. He directed Kelly to the police station on the pretence of having to sign some papers. As Kelly dismounted, Hall tried to grab him by the scruff of the neck, but failed. When Kelly resisted arrest, Hall drew his revolver and tried to shoot him, but it misfired three times. He was then overpowered by Kelly, who later said that he straddled him and dug spurs into his thighs, causing the constable to "[roar] like a big calf attacked by dogs". After subduing Kelly with the assistance of seven bystanders, Hall pistol-whipped him until his head became "a mass of raw and bleeding flesh".

Kelly and Gunn were charged with horse stealing. James Murdoch, a friend and neighbour of the Kellys, gave evidence that Ned had implied to him that the horse was stolen and had tried to recruit him to steal other horses. When it was later revealed that Kelly was still in Beechworth Gaol when the horse was taken, the charges were downgraded to "feloniously receiving a horse". Kelly and Gunn were sentenced to three years imprisonment with hard labour. Wright received eighteen months for illegal use of a horse.

Kelly served his sentence at Beechworth Gaol, then at HM Prison Pentridge near Melbourne. On 25 June 1873, Kelly's good behaviour earned him a transfer to the prison hulk Sacramento, anchored off Williamstown. He returned to Pentridge after several months and was released on 2 February 1874, six months early for good behaviour. When he returned to Greta, his brother Jim was in prison for horse theft and his mother soon married an American, George King.

To settle the score with Wright over the chestnut mare, Kelly fought him in a bare-knuckle boxing match at the Imperial Hotel in Beechworth, 8 August 1874. Kelly won after 20 rounds and was declared the unofficial boxing champion of the district. Soon afterwards, a Melbourne photographer took a portrait of Kelly in a boxing pose. Wright became an ardent supporter of Kelly.

The Whitty larceny
After his release from prison, Kelly worked at a sawmill and later for a builder. In early 1877 he joined his step-father in an organised horse stealing operation, along with Wright, Brickey Williamson, Joe Byrne, Aaron Sherritt, Allen Lowry and Albert Saxon. Kelly later claimed that the group stole 280 horses.

A number of this group also belonged to the Greta Mob, a gang of "bush larrikins" who adopted a distinctive "flash" form of dress. The Greta Mob also included Ned's brothers Jim and Dan, and his cousins Tom and Jack Lloyd.

On 18 September 1877 Kelly was arrested in Benalla for riding over a footpath while drunk. The following day he was involved in a brawl with four police officers who were escorting him to the police court. Two of the officers involved were constables Alex Fitzpatrick, who was a friend of Kelly's, and Tom Lonigan, who had grabbed Kelly by the testicles during the fracas. Kelly was found guilty of being drunk and disorderly, resisting arrest and assaulting a police officer. He was fined and released. The claim that Kelly vowed that if he ever would shoot a man it would be Lonigan is probably apocryphal. However, Kelly later claimed that Fitzgerald subsequently harassed his family because Kelly had knocked him down during the brawl.

In August 1877 Kelly, his step-father George King, and a number of accomplices had stolen 11 horses from a paddock owned by James Whitty, a wealthy local grazier. Kelly altered the brands on the horses and sold six of them to William Baumgarten, a horse dealer in Barnawartha, near the New South Wales border. On 26 September the horses were listed as stolen and the police began an investigation. On 10 November William Baumgarten and his brother Gustav were arrested for selling stolen horses and the police were on Kelly's trail. A warrant for Kelly's arrest in relation to the "Whitty larceny" was sworn in March 1878 and a further warrant for the arrest of his younger brother Dan was issued on 5 April. Kelly's step-father had disappeared, never to be seen again.

Fitzpatrick's version of events
On 11 April 1878, Constable Strachan, the officer in charge of the Greta police station, heard that Kelly was at a shearing shed in New South Wales and was given leave to apprehend him. Constable Fitzpatrick was ordered to Greta for relief duty. Fitzpatrick read in the Police Gazette of a warrant for Dan Kelly's arrest for horse stealing and he discussed with his sergeant at Benalla the idea of calling at the Kelly home on the way to Greta to arrest Dan. The sergeant agreed, but warned him to be careful. On 15 April, Fitzpatrick rode through Wilton en route to Greta, stopping at the hotel there where he had one brandy and lemonade.

Finding Dan not at home, he remained with Kelly's mother, in conversation, for about an hour. Three children were also present. According to Fitzpatrick, upon hearing someone chopping wood, he went to ensure that the chopping was licensed. The man proved to be Brickey Williamson, a neighbour, who said that he didn't need a licence because he was chopping wood on his own selection.

Fitzpatrick saw two horsemen making towards the house he had just left. The men proved to be the teenager Dan Kelly and his brother-in-law, Bill Skillion. Fitzpatrick returned to the house and made the arrest. Dan asked to be allowed to have dinner before leaving. The constable consented, and stood guard over his prisoner.

Minutes later, Ned Kelly rushed in through the front door and fired a shot at Fitzpatrick with a revolver, missing him. Ellen Kelly then hit Fitzpatrick over the head with a fire shovel. There was a struggle and Kelly fired two more shots, wounding Fitzpatrick just above his left wrist. During the struggle, Skillion and Williamson entered the room, both armed with revolvers. Dan Kelly disarmed Fitzpatrick and now had his revolver.

Ned then told Fitzpatrick that he wouldn't have fired at him if he had known it was him. Fitzpatrick fainted and when he regained consciousness Kelly compelled him to extract the bullet from his own arm with a knife. Mrs Kelly dressed the wound. Ned Kelly concocted a cover story and said that if Fitzpatrick told this story he would reward him after the Baumgarten case was over. Kelly's mother said that if he mentioned what really happened his life would be no good to him. Fitzpatrick was then allowed to leave. He had ridden away about a mile when he found that two horsemen were pursuing, but by spurring his horse into a gallop he escaped to the Winton hotel where he was assisted inside by the manager. His wound was rebandaged and he was given a brandy and water. The hotel manager then rode with him to Benalla where he reported the affair to his superior officer.

Kelly family version of events
""The witness which can prove Fitzpatrick's falsehood can be found by advertising and if this is not done immediately horrible disasters shall follow. Fitzpatrick shall be the cause of greater slaughter to the rising generation than St. Patrick was to the snakes and toads in Ireland. For had I robbed, plundered, ravished and murdered everything I met my character could not be painted blacker than it as present but thank God my conscience is as clear as the snow in Peru.""

In an interview three months before his execution, Kelly said that at the time of the incident, he was 200 miles from home, and according to him, his mother had asked Fitzpatrick if he had a warrant, and Fitzpatrick said that he had only a telegram, to which his mother said that Dan need not go. Fitzpatrick then said, pulling out a revolver, "I will blow your brains out if you interfere". His mother replied, "You would not be so handy with that popgun of yours if Ned were here". Dan then said, trying to trick Fitzpatrick, "There is Ned coming along by the side of the house". While he was pretending to look out of the window for Ned, Dan cornered Fitzpatrick, took the revolver and released Fitzpatrick unharmed. If Fitzpatrick suffered any wounds they were possibly self-inflicted. Skillion and Williamson were not present.

In 1879 Ned's sister Kate, who was 14 at the time of the incident, stated that Kelly shot Fitzpatrick after the police officer had made a sexual advance to her. After Ned Kelly was captured, he denied that Fitzpatrick tried to take liberties with Kate. He said "No, that is a foolish story; if he or any other policeman tried to take liberties with my sister, Victoria would not hold him".

In 1929 Kenneally gave another version of the incident based on interviews with the remaining Kelly brother, Jim, and Kelly cousin and gang providore Tom Lloyd. In this version Fitzpatrick was drunk when he arrived at the Kellys, that while he was waiting for Dan, he pulled Kate onto his knee, and Dan threw him to the floor. In the ensuing struggle, Fitzpatrick drew his revolver, Ned appeared, and with his brother seized the constable, disarming him, but not before he struck his wrist against the projecting part of the door lock, an injury he claimed to be a gunshot wound.

Three police officers later gave sworn evidence that Kelly, after his capture, admitted he had shot Kennedy. In 1881, Brickey Williamson, who was seeking remission for his sentence in relation to the incident, stated that Kelly shot Fitzpatrick after the policeman had drawn his revolver. Jones and Dawson have argued that Ned Kelly shot Fitzpatrick but it was his friend Joe Byrne who was with him, not Bill Skillion.

Trial
Williamson, Skillion and Ellen Kelly were arrested and charged with aiding and abetting attempted murder. Ned and Dan were nowhere to be found. The three appeared on 9 October 1878 before Judge Redmond Barry. Fitzpatrick's doctor, who had treated his wound, gave evidence that the policeman "was certainly not drunk" and that his wounds were consistent with his statement. The defence declined to call Ned Kelly's sisters, Kate and 12-year-old Grace, to give evidence even though they were eyewitnesses. The defence did call two witnesses to give evidence that Bill Skillion wasn't present, which would cast doubt on Fitzpatrick's entire evidence. One of these witnesses was a friend of the Kellys, the other, Joe Ryan, a relative. Ryan revealed that Ned Kelly was in Greta that afternoon which was damaging to the defence. Ellen Kelly, Skillion and Williamson were convicted as accessories to the attempted murder of Fitzpatrick. Skillion and Williamson both received sentences of six years and Ellen three years of hard labour.

Ellen Kelly's sentence was considered harsh, even by people who had no cause to be Kelly sympathisers, especially as she was nursing a new born baby. Alfred Wyatt, a police magistrate in Benalla, told the later Royal Commission, "I thought the sentence upon that old woman, Mrs Kelly, a very severe one."

Stringybark Creek police murders
After the Fitzpatrick incident, Ned Kelly, Dan Kelly and Joe Byrne went into hiding and were soon joined by Steve Hart, a friend of Dan. They were based at Bullock Creek in the Wombat ranges, where they made money sluicing gold and distilling whisky, and were supplied with provisions and information by sympathisers including Ned's cousin Tom Lloyd.

The police had received information that the Kelly gang were in the Wombat Ranges, at the head of the King River and, on 25 October 1878, two mounted police parties were dispatched to search for them. One party, consisting of Sergeant Michael Kennedy and constables Michael Scanlan (sometimes spelled Scanlon), Thomas Lonigan and Thomas McIntyre camped overnight in an abandoned mining site at Stringybark Creek, about 25 miles north of Mansfield. They were unaware that they were only 1.5 miles from the Kelly gang's hideout and that Ned Kelly had observed their tracks.

On the following morning, Kennedy and Scanlan went scouting while Macintyre and Lonigan remained at the camp. At about 5 p.m. the four members of the Kelly gang emerged from the bush and ordered the two policemen in the camp to bail up and raise their arms. According to McIntyre, each member of the gang was armed with a rifle, but according to Ned Kelly they only had two guns.

McIntyre was unarmed at the time and raised his arms. According to McIntyre, Lonigan made a motion to draw his revolver and ran for the cover of a tree a few yards away. Kelly immediately shot Lonigan, killing him. According to Kelly, Lonigan had ducked behind a fallen tree and Kelly shot him as he raised his head to fire at Kelly.

The Kelly gang now questioned McIntyre and armed themselves with the policemen's shotgun and revolvers.

At about 5.30 p.m., Kennedy and Scanlan returned on horseback and the Kelly gang hid themselves. According to McIntyre, he walked towards Kennedy but before he could speak to him, the Kelly gang ordered the police to bail up. Kennedy tried to unclip his gun holster and shots were fired by the gang. McIntyre told Kennedy to surrender as he was surrounded. Meanwhile, Scanlan dismounted and was shot while trying to unsling his rifle. McIntyre stated that Scanlon didn't have time to fire a shot. According to Kelly, Scanlan fired and Kelly shot him as he tried to fire again. Scanlan died soon after.

Kennedy had dismounted and, according to McIntyre, tried to surrender without firing a shot, but the gang continued firing at him. According to Kelly, Kennedy hid behind a tree and started firing. In the exchange of gunfire, McIntyre, who was still unarmed, mounted Kennedy’s horse and was able to escape.

Kennedy retreated into the bush. Ned and Dan pursued him for almost a mile, exchanging gunfire with the policeman, before Ned shot him in the right side. According to Ned, Kennedy then turned around to face him and Ned shot him in the chest with his shotgun, not realising that Kennedy had dropped his revolver and was turning to surrender.

McIntyre reached Mansfield police station the following day and a search party quickly found the bodies of Lonigan and Scanlan. Kennedy's body was found two days later. The bodies had been looted of watches, rings, and other personal items.

Post-mortem examinations showed that Lonigan had been shot three times: through the arm, the leg and the right eye, the latter being the cause of death. Scanlan had four bullet wounds. Kennedy had at least two bullet wounds, one a shotgun wound through the chest fired from very close range.

McIntyre's initial accounts of the Stringybark police killings were given at Mansfield on 27 October and at the inquest into the deaths of Lonigan and Scanlan on 29 October. Ned Kelly's initial accounts of the killings were given in his Cameron letter of December 1878 and Jerilderie letter of February 1879. These, and later accounts by McIntyre and Kelly, varied in their details. Jones, Morrissey and others have questioned the credibility of some aspects of McIntyre's and Kelly's version of events.

In the Jerilderie letter, Kelly claimed that he had been told that a number of police officers had boasted that they would shoot him without giving him a chance to surrender. He also claimed that the weapons (especially the two rifles) and amount of ammunition the police party carried indicated their intention of killing him rather than arresting him. He claimed that these circumstances and the failure of the police to surrender when ordered to justified him killing them in self-defence. McIntyre stated that he told Kelly that the intention of the police party was to arrest him and that they were not excessively armed in the circumstances. He stated that it was the Kelly gang who confronted the police with their weapons drawn and that they did not give the police a realistic chance to surrender.

Outlawed under the Felons' Apprehension Act
News of the police murders led to widespread fear of the bushrangers. On 28 October the government announced a reward of ₤800 (₤200 per head) for their arrest and this was soon increased to ₤2,000. On 31 October 1878, the Victorian parliament passed the Felons Apprehension Act, and it came into effect on 1 November. Three days later, notices were published throughout the colony giving the bushrangers until 12 November to surrender themselves. On 15 November the four members of the Kelly gang, not having surrendered themselves, were declared outlaws. The outlaws could be killed without challenge by anyone finding them armed or who had a reasonable suspicion that they were armed. The act also penalised anyone who gave "any aid, shelter or sustenance" to the outlaws or withheld information, or gave false information, about them to the authorities. Punishment was "imprisonment with or without hard labour for such period not exceeding fifteen years". The Felons Apprehension Act eventually lapsed on 26 June 1880, just before the siege at Glenrowan.

The Victorian act was based on the New South Wales Felons Apprehension Act of 1865, which had been enacted in response to the bushrangers Dan Morgan and Ben Hall. In response to the Kelly gang, the New South Wales parliament re-enacted their legislation as the Felons Apprehension Act 1879 (NSW).

Euroa raid
After the Stringybark Creek police killings, the Kelly gang unsuccessfully attempted to escape across the flooded Murray river into New South Wales before returning to their base in north-eastern Victoria, They had narrowly avoided the police on several occasions and were relying on the support of the extended Kelly family, criminal associates and other sympathisers.

In need of money, the gang planned to rob the bank in the small town of Euroa. On Sunday 8 December 1878, Joe Byrne scouted the town and reported back that there would be a funeral and a sitting of the Licensing Court on the following Tuesday afternoon that many of its inhabitants would be attending. At 12.30 p.m. on 9 December, the Kelly gang held up the Younghusband pastoral sub-station, at Faithful's Creek, 3.5 miles from Euroa. Fourteen male employees and passers-by were taken hostage and held overnight in a brick outbuilding near the Faithfull's creek homestead. Female hostages were held in the homestead. One of the hostages was a passing hawker who supplied the four members of the Kelly gang with new, respectable clothes. It is probable that the hawker and a number of other hostages were sympathisers of the gang and had prior knowledge of the raid.

The following day, Dan guarded the hostages while Ned, Byrne and Hart rode out to wreck the telegraph wires connecting Euroa to the outside world. After cutting the wires, the gang encountered a hunting party and some railways workers whom they held up and took back to Faithfull's Creek as hostages. Ned, Dan and Hart then went into Euroa, leaving Byrne to guard the prisoners.

Just after 4 p.m., the three gang members knocked at the doors of the closed National Bank at Euroa and gained entry from the front and back. They drew their revolvers and held up the bank and the bank manager's living quarters in the building. They emptied the safes and cashiers' drawers of cash and gold worth £2,260 and a small number of documents and securities. The 14 members of the bank manager's household and staff were taken back to the Faithfull's Creek homestead as hostages.

Back at Faithfull's Creek, the gang performed some trick riding for the hostages, who now numbered 37, before leaving at about 8.30 p.m., warning their captives to remain where they were for three hours or there would be reprisals.

Following the raid, a number of newspapers commented on the efficiency of its execution and compared it with the inefficiency of the police who had failed to capture the gang in the six weeks since the Stringybark police killings. Several hostages stated that the gang had behaved courteously and without violence during the raid. However, hostages also stated that on several occasions Ned Kelly and other gang members had become enraged and had cocked their revolvers and pointed them at hostages, threatening to shoot them. The gang had also threatened to burn buildings containing hostages if there was any resistance.

The Cameron letter
While at the Faithfull's Creek homestead, Joe Byrne wrote out two fair copies of a letter that had been dictated by Ned Kelly. On 14 December 1878, the copies were posted to Donald Cameron, a Victorian parliamentarian who Ned Kelly wrongly thought was sympathetic to the gang, and John Sadleir, the police superintendent at Benalla. In the letter, Kelly made claims of police corruption and harassment of his family and gave his version of the Fitzpatrick incident, the Stringybark police killings and other events. Kelly expected Cameron to read the letter out in parliament, but the government refused to make it public. Newspapers, however, published summaries of its contents with commentary. Kelly later repeated much of the contents of the letter in the longer Jerilderie letter.

Kelly sympathisers held
On 2 January 1879, the police used the Felons Apprehension Act to obtain warrants for the arrest of presumed Kelly sympathisers for aiding the outlaws. Thirty men were arrested in the following days and 23 were remanded in custody. Among the leading Kelly sympathisers who were held were Tom Lloyd junior, Jimmy Quinn, Wild Wright and Joe Ryan. Over a third were released within seven weeks due to lack of evidence, but a core of nine sympathisers had their remand renewed on a weekly basis for almost three months, despite the failure of the police to produce evidence for a committal hearing. The police claimed that their informants were reluctant to give sworn evidence for fear of reprisals.

On 22 April, Police Magistrate Foster refused prosecution requests to continue remands and discharged the remaining 11 detainees. Although the police command was disturbed by this decision, by then it was clear that the tactic of holding sympathisers on continuous remand had not impeded the activities of the Kelly gang.

Jones argues that the decision to hold key Kelly sympathisers without trial for several months swung public sympathy away from the police. Dawson, however, points out that while there was widespread condemnation of the denial of the civil liberties of those detained, this didn't necessarily mean there was widespread support for the outlaws.

Jerilderie raid
Following the Euroa raid, 58 police were transferred to north-eastern Victoria (making a total of 217 police in the district), around 50 soldiers were deployed to guard banks in the region, and the reward for Ned Kelly's capture was increased to £1,000. The Kelly gang had distributed most of the proceeds from the raid to family, friends and associates who had given them assistance. The outlaws were once more in need of funds, and planned to rob the bank at Jerilderie, a town of 500 residents about 40 miles across the border in New South Wales. A number of sympathisers moved into the town in the days before the raid to provide information and undercover support for the gang.

On Friday, 7 February 1879, the Kelly gang crossed the Murray river between Mulwala and Tocumwal, and camped overnight in thick forest. The following day they visited Davidson's Inn, about two miles from Jerilderie, where they drank and chatted with patrons and staff, learning more about the town and the police presence there.

Just after midnight on the morning of Sunday, 9 February, the gang went to the Jerilderie police barracks, about half a mile from the town centre, on the pretext of alerting the police to a fictitious brawl at Davidson's Inn. After confirming that there were only two policemen present — Senior Constable George Devine and Probationary Constable Henry Richards — the gang drew their revolvers and bailed up the policemen. They secured the policemen in the lockup near the main building and spent the night in the residential quarters of the police station, where they held Devine's wife and young children hostage.

The gang spent most of Sunday morning preparing for the bank robbery while many of the town's population were attending church. On Sunday afternoon, Byrne and Hart, dressed in police uniforms, took the disarmed Constable Richards with them into town so they could familiarise themselves with its layout. Richards was told to introduce the strangers as police reinforcements sent to search for the Kelly gang. The three then returned to the police barracks and the gang finalised plans for the following day's raid.

At 10 a.m. on 10 February, Ned Kelly and Byrne donned police uniforms and the four outlaws took Richards with them into town. They had left Devine in the police lockup and had warned Mrs Devine that if she tried to leave the barracks they would burn it down with her and the children inside.

The gang went into the main street of Jerilderie and held up the Royal Mail Hotel, which was next door to the Bank of New South Wales. They took the hotel staff and patrons prisoner, and as the raid progressed, anyone walking into the hotel was taken prisoner and held in the parlour of the hotel. It is almost certain that some of those held were sympathisers planted by the outlaws. Ned Kelly and Byrne then entered the bank from the rear, leaving Dan Kelly and Hart in control of the hotel.

Ned Kelly and Byrne held up the bank, taking £2,141 in cash, and jewellery and other valuables. Kelly also took deeds, mortgages and securities from the safe which he later had burned because, "the bloody banks are crushing the life's blood out of the poor, struggling man." The bank staff and several people who had entered the bank were taken prisoner and transferred to the parlour of the hotel.

Byrne then held up the post office and destroyed the morse key and insulator. Following this, several of the prisoners were ordered to take axes and bring down the telegraph poles and wires. Once the telegraph was cut, Ned Kelly went with two hostages to the newspaper owner's home where Kelly asked for copies of his Jerilderie letter to be printed. The newspaper owner, however, had earlier escaped capture at the bank and had fled the town.

After a detour to appraise a locally famous race horse, Kelly returned to the Royal Mail Hotel where he delivered a speech to the hostages outlining his grievances against the police and the justice system. Kelly then told the hostages, who now numbered about 30, that they were free to go. However, he took Richards and the two post office workers (who knew how to operate the telegraph) with him to the police barracks.

Back at the barracks, the gang secured the two policemen and two post office employees in the lockup and prepared to leave with the proceeds from the bank robbery, the police horses and police weapons. Mrs Devine was threatened with reprisals if she released the prisoners before 7.30 p.m. Dan Kelly and Byrne then rode out of Jerilderie. Ned Kelly and Hart rode back into town where Ned stayed a short while, drinking at the Albion (Traveller's Rest) hotel with the strangers who had recently entered the town and were soon to leave. While there, the local parson, John Gribble, persuaded Kelly to leave the racehorse he had taken as it belonged to a young lady. When Kelly and Hart left, they were not seen again by the police for 17 months.

Jerilderie Letter
"I wish to acquaint you with some of the occurrences of the present past and future." Prior to arriving in Jerilderie, Kelly composed a lengthy letter with the aim of tracing his path to outlawry, justifying his actions, and outlining the alleged injustices he and his family suffered at the hands of the police. He also decries the treatment of poor selector families by Victoria's Squattocracy, and, in "an escalating promise of revenge and retribution", invokes "a mythical tradition of Irish rebellion" against what he calls "the tyrannism of the English yoke". Dictated to Byrne, it is known as the Jerilderie Letter, and is a handwritten document of 56 pages and 7,391 words. While holding up Jerilderie, Kelly gave the letter, which he called "a bit of my life", to Edwin Living, a local bank accountant, and demanded that he deliver it to the editor of the Jerilderie and Urana Gazette for publication. Due to political suppression, only excerpts were published in the press, based on a copy transcribed by John Hanlon, owner of the Eight Mile Hotel in Deniliquin. The entire letter was rediscovered and published in 1930.

According to historian Alex McDermott, "Kelly inserts himself into history, on his own terms, with his own voice. ... We hear the living speaker in a way that no other document in our history achieves". It has been interpreted as a proto-republican manifesto; for others, it is a "murderous, ... maniacal rant", and "a remarkable insight into Kelly's grandiosity". Noted for its unorthodox grammar, the letter reaches "delirious poetics", Kelly's language being "hyperbolic, allusive, hallucinatory ... full of striking metaphors and images". His invective and sense of humour are also present; in one well-known passage, he calls the Victorian police "a parcel of big ugly fat-necked wombat headed, big bellied, magpie legged, narrow hipped, splaw-footed sons of Irish bailiffs or English landlords". The letter closes:

"neglect this and abide by the consequences, which shall be worse than the rust in the wheat of Victoria or the druth of a dry season to the grasshoppers in New South Wales I do not wish to give the order full force without giving timely warning. but I am a widows son outlawed and my orders must be obeyed."

Reward increase and disappearance
In response to the Jerilderie raid, the New South Wales Government and several banks collectively issued £4,000 for the gang's capture, dead or alive, the largest reward offered in the colony since £5,000 was placed on the heads of the outlawed Clarke brothers in 1867. The Victorian Government matched the offer for the Kelly gang, bringing the total amount to £8,000, bushranging's largest-ever reward.

The Victorian police continued to receive many reports of sightings of the outlaws from the public and information about their activities from their network of paid informants. The Chief Commissioner of Police, Frederick Standish, and Superintendent Francis Hare directed operations against the gang from Benalla. Hare organised frequent search parties and surveillance of the close family and associates of the outlaws.

In March 1879, six Queensland Native police troopers and a senior constable under the command of sub-Inspector Stanhope O'Connor were deployed to Benalla to join the hunt for the Kelly gang. O'Connor and his troopers, at the time of the request, were in active service in the Cooktown region conducting punitive expeditions against Indigenous communities and had recently massacred thirty people near Cape Bedford. Although Ned Kelly feared the tracking ability of the Aboriginal troopers, Standish and Hare doubted their value and they were not put to their best use. The Aboriginal troopers were withdrawn on 25 June 1880, but quickly re-engaged following the murder of police informant Aaron Sherritt the following day.

On 7 May 1879, Standish provided the Victorian Land Board with a list of 84 family members and other alleged sympathisers of the outlaws in order to prevent them buying land in the secluded areas of north-eastern Victoria. The avowed aim of the policy was to disperse the Kelly family and its sympathisers and disrupt stock theft in the region. The impact of the policy is controversial. Jones and others claim that it caused widespread resentment and hardened support for the outlaws. Morrissey, however, states that although the policy was sometimes used unfairly, it was effective and supported by the majority of the community.

On 3 July 1879, following media and parliamentary criticism of the cost and lack of success of the Kelly gang search, Standish appointed Assistant Commissioner Charles Nicolson in charge of operations at Benalla in place of the injured Hare. Standish removed 14 troopers and 17 foot police from Nicolson's command, withdrew most of the soldiers guarding banks, and cut the budget for the search. Nicolson responded by cutting back search parties and relying more heavily on targeted surveillance and his network of spies and informers.

On 2 June 1880, after almost a year of unsuccessful efforts to capture the outlaws, Nicolson was replaced by Hare. On 20 May a police informant, Daniel Kennedy, had reported that the Kelly gang had successfully made bullet-proof armour out of agricultural equipment and were planning another raid. On 25 June, Kennedy personally reported the information about the armour and impending raid to Hare. Hare dismissed the intelligence as preposterous and sacked Kennedy.

Murder of Aaron Sherritt
"... I look upon Ned Kelly as an extraordinary man; there is no man in the world like him, he is superhuman."

During the Kelly outbreak, police watch parties monitored houses belonging to relatives of the gang, including that of Byrne's mother in the Woolshed Valley, near Beechworth. The police used the house of her neighbour, former Greta mob member and lifelong friend of Byrne, Aaron Sherritt, as a base of operations, sleeping in it during the day and keeping watch from nearby caves at night. Sherritt accepted police payments for camping with the watch parties and for providing information on the bushrangers' activities. It is likely that Sherritt also provided the police with false information in order to protect Byrne. Detective Michael Ward was particularly sceptical of Sherritt's value as an informant.

In March 1879 Byrne's mother discovered Sherritt with a police surveillance party and later publicly denounced him as a police spy. In the following months, Byrne and Ned Kelly sent Sherritt messages stating that the Lloyds and Quinns wanted him shot and that it would be better for him if he joined the outlaws. When Sherritt continued his relationship with the police, Byrne personally warned Sherritt's mother that the outlaws were going to kill Sherritt. The gang finally decided to murder Sherritt as part of their own plan, one that they boasted would "astonish not only the Australian colonies, but the whole world".

On 26 June 1880, Dan and Byrne rode into the Woolshed Valley. That evening, they kidnapped Anton Wick, who lived near Sherritt, and forced him to come with them to Sherritt's hut, which was occupied by Sherritt, his pregnant wife Ellen, Ellen's mother, Mrs Barry, and four policemen who had been stationed in the hut to guard Sherritt and spy on Mrs Byrne's home.

At about 6.30 p.m., Dan went to the front door of the hut while Byrne forced Wick to knock on the back door and call out for Sherritt. When Sherritt answered the door, Byrne shot him in the throat and chest with a shotgun, killing him. Byrne then entered the hut and Dan was let in while the four policemen hid in the bedroom. Byrne heard the police scrambling for their shotguns and demanded that they come out. When the police didn't respond he fired into the bedroom. He then sent Ellen into the bedroom to bring the police out, but they held her in the room.

The outlaws left the hut with Mrs Barry, collected kindling, and loudly threatened to burn alive those inside. They sent Mrs Barry back inside and the police detained her in the bedroom. After a failed attempt to set fire to the building, the outlaws stayed outside yelling threats at the occupants. They then released Wick and rode away, ending the two-hour siege.

The police, however, didn't leave the hut until the following morning, for fear that the bushrangers would be still waiting outside for them. News of Sherritt's death only reached Hare in Benalla at 2.30 p.m. on Sunday, 27 June.

Siege and shootout
The gang estimated that the policemen inside Sherritt's hut would relay news of his murder to Beechworth by early Sunday morning, prompting a special police train to be sent up from Melbourne. They also surmised that the train would collect reinforcements in Benalla before continuing through Glenrowan, a small town in the Warby Ranges. There, the gang planned to wreck the train and shoot dead any survivors, then ride to an unpoliced Benalla where they would rob the banks, set fire to the courthouse, blow up the police barracks, release anyone imprisoned in the gaol, and "generally play havoc with the entire town" before returning to the bush.

While Byrne and Dan were in the Woolshed Valley, Ned and Hart tried, but failed, to damage the track at Glenrowan, so they forced two local platelayers and some labourers camped nearby to finish the job. The outlaws selected a sharp curve in the line that ran across a deep ravine, and told their captives that they were going to "send the train and its occupants to hell".

Byrne and Dan Kelly had now arrived at Glenrowan and the gang had taken over the railway station, the stationmaster's home and Ann Jones' Glenrowan Inn, opposite the railway station and just under a mile from the town centre. The gang used the hotel to hold the workers, passers-by, and other male prisoners they gathered throughout the night and following day. Most of the women and children taken prisoner were held at the stationmaster's home. The other hotel in town, McDonnell's Railway Hotel, on the other side of the tracks, was used to stable the gang's stolen horses, one of which carried a tin of blasting powder and fuses. Their packhorses also carried suits of bullet-repelling armour, each complete with a helmet and weighing about 44 kg. The armour was designed to provide protection for the outlaws as they stood on top of the embankment firing down on any survivors of the train wreck. There was no leg armour as it would hinder the outlaws' movement and wasn't necessary given the angle of any return fire up the embankment.

By Sunday afternoon, the expected train still had not arrived and the outlaws had moved most of the women and children to the Glenrowan Inn. There were now 62 hostages, including sympathisers who the gang had planted to help control the situation. As the hours passed without any sight of the train, the gang plied the hostages with drink and organised music, singing, dancing and games. One hostage later testified, "[Ned] did not treat us badly—not at all". However, Ned Kelly threatened to shoot another young hostage, keeping him "in a state of extreme terror for about half an hour".

During the late afternoon and evening of Sunday, Ned allowed 21 of the hostages who he considered trustworthy to leave. At about 10 p.m., Ned and Byrne captured Glenrowan's lone constable, Hugh Bracken, with the assistance of hostage Thomas Curnow, a local schoolmaster who sought to gain the gang's trust in order to thwart their plans. Believing that Curnow was a sympathiser, Ned let him and his wife return to their home close to the railway tracks, but warned them to "go quietly to bed and not to dream too loud".

The police train Ned Kelly had been expecting only left Benalla after 2 a.m. on Monday. The train carried seven regular troopers under Superintendent Hare, five Queensland Aboriginal Troopers under sub-Inspector O'Connor, four journalists and several other civilians. Acting on intelligence that the tracks had been sabotaged, Hare had ordered a pilot engine to travel ahead of the police train. At 2.30 a.m., the pilot train was approaching Glenrowan when Curnow went to the tracks, signalled it to stop, and alerted the driver of the danger.

Ned Kelly had decided to let the hostages return home and was delivering them a lecture about police informers when Byrne came in from outside with the news that a train had arrived. The outlaws donned their armour and prepared themselves for a confrontation. Bracken meanwhile told the hostages to lie low, and escaped to the railway station to explain the situation to the police. On hearing Bracken's news, Hare immediately led a detachment of police towards the hotel while the main body of troopers prepared the horses and equipment. It was just after 3 a.m.

The four outlaws positioned themselves in the shadow of the veranda in the front of the building and opened fire when the police were about 30 yards away in the moonlight. The police returned fire and about 100 to 150 shots were fired in 15 minutes. Someone shouted that there were women and children in the building and there was a lull in the shooting. Hare was wounded in the left wrist and soon had to return to Benalla for treatment. Ned Kelly was wounded in the left hand and arm and his right foot. Joe Byrne was shot in the leg and retreated into the hotel. Two hostages were fatally wounded by police fire through the thin weatherboard walls of the building: 13-year-old John Jones and railway worker Martin Cherry. A third hostage, George Metcalf, was also fatally wounded, either by police fire or shot accidently by Ned Kelly in an earlier incident.

During the lull in the firing, a number of hostages, mostly women and children, escaped from the hotel. Ned Kelly, bleeding heavily from his wounds, retreated behind the hotel and made his way into the bush where police found his skull cap and rifle at around 3.30 a.m., about 100 yards from the hotel. Kelly later stated that at that time he was in the bushes not far from the police.

The police surrounded the hotel throughout the night, and the firing continued intermittently. At about 5 a.m., Byrne was fatally shot in the groin while making a toast to the Kelly gang in the bar. Between 5.30 a.m. and 7 a.m. police reinforcements under Sergeant Steele and Superintendent Sadleir arrived from Wangaratta and Benalla, taking the police contingent to about 40.

Last stand and capture
Historians disagree over Kelly's movements after he had left the hotel. Jones speculates that he had ridden away to meet sympathisers, had returned to the hotel in time to see Byrne shot, then crossed police lines again into the bush. Dawson, however, argues that Kelly's wounds were serious and he had lain in the bush for most of the time and had not returned to the hotel.

At dawn (about 7 a.m.), Ned Kelly, dressed in his armour and armed with three handguns, came out of the bush and attacked the police from their rear. The police returned fire as the wounded Kelly staggered towards the hotel, his heavy armour repelling bullets. Eyewitnesses variously compared Kelly's appearance to a bunyip, the devil, and a ghost.

The gun battle lasted under half an hour — Dan Kelly and Hart providing intermittent covering fire from the hotel — until Steele brought down Ned Kelly with two shotgun blasts to his unprotected legs and thighs. Kelly was disarmed and carried to the railway station where a doctor dressed his wounds.

In the meantime the siege continued. Around 10 a.m., a ceasefire was called and the remaining 30 hostages left the hotel. The police ordered the hostages to lie down and they were checked to ensure that the outlaws were not among them. Two of the hostages were arrested for being known Kelly sympathisers.

Fire and aftermath
By Monday afternoon, a crowd of some 600 spectators had gathered at Glenrowan, and Dan Kelly and Hart had ceased shooting. Unwilling to allow his men to storm the hotel, Sadleir ordered a cannon to be sent to blast out the outlaws but then decided to burn them out. At 2.50 p.m, Senior Constable Charles Johnson, supported by covering fire from the police, set fire to the Glenrowan Inn.

Matthew Gibney, a Catholic priest, entered the burning building in an attempt to rescue anyone inside and discovered the bodies of Byrne, Dan Kelly and Hart. The exact circumstances of the death of Dan Kelly and Hart remains a mystery. The police recovered the body of Byrne from the hotel bar and rescued the seriously wounded hostage Martin Cherry from the kitchen behind the hotel, but he died soon after. After the fire died out at 4 p.m., the police recovered the badly burnt bodies of Dan Kelly and Hart.

The death toll at Glenrowan included three members of the Kelly gang and the hostages Martin Cherry, John (Jack) Jones (who died the following day at Wangaratta Hospital) and George Metcalf (who died from his gunshot wound several months later).

John's sister Jane Jones received a head wound during the siege from a stray bullet, and two years later died from a lung infection that her mother believed was hastened by the injury. Others wounded were hostages Michael Reardon and his baby sister Bridget (who was grazed by a bullet), Superintendent Hare and an Aboriginal trooper. Ned Kelly suffered more than two dozen gunshot wounds.

The following day, the police tied Byrne's body to the door of the Benalla lockup to be photographed. His friends asked for the body, but the police instead arranged a hasty inquiry and burial in a pauper's grave in Benalla Cemetery. The charred remains of Dan and Hart were taken to Greta and buried by their families in unmarked graves in the local cemetery.