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Ned Kelly: Australian Iron Outlaw | Real Villains

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Ned Kelly: Biography, landmarks and exhibitions, depictions in the media and the arts, and image gallery of Ned Kelly Australian Iron Outlaw and the Kelly Gang.

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Lololol0lo

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but I dont even like bananas lol

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rebuhli

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=LIFE

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He was a Woolshed lad, born around 1857 of Irish-Catholic extraction. His father died when Joe was around twelve years old, after a working life as a digger then a dairyman. Byrne went to school with Aaron Sherritt and they later served six months together for the unlawful possession of meat. Later Joe was fined for the illegal use of a horse.

Like the rest of the Kelly Gang, Byrne was a good shot and fine horseman. He practiced riding down steep gullies for fun. He was also an experienced alluvial miner and could speak fluent Cantonese having grown up amongst the Chinese diggers, which came in handy during his numerous visits to their opium dens.

Joe Byrne was part of the Kelly Gang because he happened to be around on the day of the Stringybark killings. On another day the gang could have been made up from an entirely different cast including Tom Lloyd, Ned's cousin, or Wild Wright, Ned's mischievous Mansfield mate, or even Aaron Sherritt. Joe Byrne, however, was no ring-in. He became mates with Ned Kelly in 1876 and trusted him completely.

Joe Byrne is remembered as Ned Kelly's lieutenant. The man Ned consulted on strategy. Ned saw Joe as a wise, patient sort of fellow unlike Dan or Steve which is why he tolerated Byrne's relationship with Sherritt, even when others were branding Aaron as a police informer. At Stringybark Creek the evidence suggests that Joe shot dead Constable Scanlon after Ned had blown him off his horse. Scanlon's ring was worn by Joe Byrne at Glenrowan. Aaron Sherritt inadvertently implicated Joe as a Kelly Gang member when, on being asked to become an police informer said he would consider the deal if Byrne's life was spared.
Of all the suits, Joe's was the finest, breast and back plates clamped together by side plates in a perfect fit, the helmet with face piece shaped and beaten to meet brow plate above the nose and divide the narrow eye slit into two dark orbits, evoking a Vendel helmet his Viking ancestors might have worn.
Ian Jones The Fatal Friendship

Joe's high-heeled boots were his trademark, being referred to as larrikin heels during late nineteenth century Victoria. Byrne was seen as one of the most glamorous gang members with his handsome colonial boy charm and his strong opposition to police law and order. Joe enjoyed reading a fine book and was a highly proficient writer. It was Joe who penned Ned's words in the famous Jerilderie letter as well as the red inked Euroa letter, sent to Victorian MP Donald Cameron and Superintendent Sadlier. It is also understood Joe composed a number of ballads extolling the virtues of the Gang's escapades. A verse from one of his songs goes:

He was reputed to have a number of girlfriends in the towns of the Kelly country and, at the height of the hunt for the gang, he used to slip into Beechworth to drink in the back bars of hotels there. All this bravado however, did not prevent him from murdering his one time best friend Aaron Sherritt whom Joe believe rightly or wrongly to be a police informer. He certainly believed he was betrayed by Aaron however history is yet to prove that Sherritt supplied any real information that aided the police hunt. It was more likely Sherritt was trying to line his pockets with some easy money whilst throwing the scent off the real trial. However, what is certain was that Sherritt made the fatal mistake in not letting Joe in on his plan.
Accounts say that, a moment before the bullet struck Joe Byrne dead, he offered the toast 'Here's to the bold Kelly Gang!'. Another report states that he said 'Many more years in the bush for the Kelly Gang!'
John Sadlier writes of Joe's final scene in the Glenrowan pub, 'We were told that Byrne had been firing, and was in great spirits, boasting of what the gang was going to do. The work was hot, and he went to the counter for a drink. Finding that the weight of the armour prevented him throwing back his head to swallow the liquor he lifted the apron-shaped plate with one hand while with the other he lifted the glass to his mouth. In this attitude a chance bullet struck him in the groin, and spinning around once he fell dead'. The police managed to drag the body of Byrne from the burning Inn moments before the entire building was engulfed in flames.

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He was a Woolshed lad, born around 1857 of Irish-Catholic extraction. His father died when Joe was around twelve years old, after a working life as a digger then a dairyman. Byrne went to school with Aaron Sherritt and they later served six months together for the unlawful possession of meat.

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The Hero

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1. Ned Kelly justifies his actions by saying that his family was wrongfully convicted of a crime by the at the time "Corrupt Police Force"

2. We believe the Ned Kelly was indeed courageous and heroic in his actions at Stringy bark as he stood up against the corrupt police force and because he killed them in self defence as they were obligated to kill Ned

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Group 1: Excerpt From the Jerilderie Letter

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Group 1: Excerpt From the Jerilderie Letter

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… there was never such a thing as justice in the English laws but any amount of injustice to be had …

If a poor man happened to leave his horse or a … calf outside his paddocks they would be impounded.

I have known over 60 head of horses impounded in one day … all belonging to poor farmers …

The trooper [Fitzpatrick] pulled out his revolver and said he would blow her [Ellen Kelly's] brains out if she interfered in the arrest [of Dan Kelly] … The trooper … invented some scheme to say that he got shot which any man can see is false … the Police got credit and praise for arresting the mother of 12 children one an infant on her breast … I heard nothing of this … I being over 400 miles from Greta when I heard I was outlawed …

… they must remember those men [Kennedy, Scanlan, Lonigan and McIntyre] came into the bush with the intention of scattering pieces of me and my brother all over the bush and yet they know … I have been wronged …

Edward Kelly

1. Identify evidence of injustice against Irish people and police corruption.

2. Using evidence from the letter explain why Ned Kelly felt justified in murdering the three officers at Stringybark Creek.

3, Using your knowledge of Ned Kelly's life explain whether you agree with Ned Kelly's description of himself as a heroic victim or whether you believe he was a villain.

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Group 2: Stringybark Creek Massacres - Historian Malcolm Ellis' View

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Group 2: Stringybark Creek Massacres - Historian Malcolm Ellis' View

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Beside Ned his three companions are shadowy figures and would have been soon forgotten without him. In the Bulletin, 31 December 1966, Malcolm Ellis described Ned Kelly as 'one of the most cold-blooded, egotistical, and utterly self-centred criminals who ever decorated the end of a rope in an Australian jail'. As the outlaws were undoubtedly murderers and robbers, they should have excited public detestation. Yet it did not turn out that way, and the hold the Kelly legend has on Australian imagination is too clearly established to be disregarded. However deplorable, the popular estimate of Kelly's killings of the police at Stringybark Creek accords with his statement, 'I could not help shooting them, or else let them shoot me, which they would have done if their bullets had been directed as they intended'

1. Describe each the author's views of Ned Kelly's murder of three policemen at Stringybark Creek - Why does he believe the public excused Kelly's murders?

2. In light of his murderous deeds, although for a just cause, Is Ned Kelly a hero deserving of being celebrated in Australian history or a villain best forgotten?

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Ned Kelly was born in June 1855 to a proud Irish Catholic family whose resentment of the British set the precedent for his life. Washed deep with the convict stain, Ned’s destiny was cast in a defiant mold. The story of his short life was one that saw Ned and his gang take on corrupt police, greedy land barons and an ignorant government in a quest to change their world for the better. Wrongly accused, they survived a deadly shoot out with police in 1878 that resulted in Ned, his brother Dan, and their mates Joe Byrne and Steve Hart, being declared outlaws with the largest reward ever offered in the British Empire for their capture – dead or alive. Over the next eighteen months the Kelly Gang held up two country towns and robbed their banks, without firing a single shot; wrote numerous essays, including the famed Jerilderie Letter, explaining their actions; and became folk heroes to an emerging nation. Their grand plan to derail a special police train and declare a republic of North East Victoria came to a fiery end in Glenrowan when they donned their famous but cumbersome armour against an overwhelming police presence. By 11 November, 1880 the era of the Kelly Gang drew to a close when Ned, after a brief trial, was hanged. Yet the legacy of his life and the chord he struck within a young country, unwilling to bend to injustice, saw Ned Kelly become Australia’s most enduring legend.

1. How is Ned Kelly's life described here - does the language used paint him as a hero or a villain?

2. Compare this description to what you know about Ned Kelly's actions - is there any evidence of bias or missing information?

3. Do you believe that Ned Kelly was a hero deserving of celebration in Australian history or a villain best left forgotten?

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Group 4The Australian Newspaper - Let Us Not Cry For Ned Kelly

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Group 4The Australian Newspaper - Let Us Not Cry For Ned Kelly

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1. How is Ned Kelly portrayed in this article?

2. What reasons does the author give to justify his view?

3. Do you agree with Christopher Bantick's analysis or do you believe that Ned Kelly deserves heroic status - give reasons for your answer.

Let us not cry for Ned Kelly

·  CHRISTOPHER BANTICK

·  THE AUSTRALIAN

·  JANUARY 18, 2013 12:00AM

WHEN news of Ned Kelly's burial makes London's The Guardian newspaper, then we are dealing with no ordinary outlaw. Kelly has taken on monumental proportions in Australia as a kind of colonial voice for all the oppressed, broken and bereft. His burial is undeniably appropriate.

But while I can appreciate that Kelly's family would like him to have his last wish - burial in consecrated ground - the question that needs to be asked is whether he is deserving of the respect his family crave.

"The family wish for their privacy to be respected so that they may farewell a very much loved member of their family," The Guardian reported.

This is understandable but burying a bag of dusty bones will not bury the myth that every primary school-aged child knows as a rite of passage. This is that Kelly was an outlaw who was misunderstood.

The truth is something else altogether. Kelly, for all his tourist dollar potential and funding Glenrowan's survival, was not the kinda guy you want as a neighbour. One unfortunate man had this unhappy experience and Kelly happily sent his wife a pair of bullock's testicles as an elegant statement of her husband's potency.

What is edited out of the myth of Kelly is his deep psychosis. When I worked some years ago on the ABC/Channel 4 documentary Outlawed: The Real Ned Kelly, dealing with Kelly's status as a national hero, a police profiler did a study of Kelly's behaviour and in particular the Jerilderie letter.

The result was damning. Kelly was psychotic and dangerous.

How he has been excused from planning mass murder at Glenrowan is an interesting example of distorted historical revisionism.

The Glenrowan incident was by any measure a calculated bloodbath of Port Arthur proportions.

Kelly's pathological hatred of the police was enough to justify his reasons, but the uncomfortable fact remains that Kelly was a police murderer. There are no grounds for editing this out of his brutal and mercifully short life.

There can be no erasing of the names - Michael Scanlon, Thomas Lonigan and Michael Kennedy - that appear at Mansfield in Victoria and the police monument in St Kilda Road. All shot by Kelly.

The appropriation of the Kelly story as some kind of colonial talisman where we see through the Kelly diorama the reality of the downtrodden Irish is risible. So is the persistent misinformation peddled in classrooms that Kelly was something other than a bit of a bovver boy who was disturbed, violent, pitiless and replete with his own self-aggrandisement. Most mass-murderers are similarly disposed.

It does not take much of a leap of the imagination to see how Kelly would have used social media to get his message across. He would have hate sites aplenty against the police and, sadly, I suspect he would have received plenty of tweets, let alone "friends" on Facebook. I suspect there will be in the offing a colonial Underbelly, with Kelly as the feature.

Given that the family clustering around the graveside will present a tragic picture of grief and loss, let us allow their tears to dry. This is the least any family can hope for regarding a wayward relative.

But let the rest of us not weep for Kelly. Let us remember that we, the mythmakers, are culpable in aiding and abetting the promotion of a callous murderer every time we say the good old Aussie epigram: "As game as Ned Kelly."

Christopher Bantick is a Melbourne writer

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1. For each document answer the following questions and present your information to the rest of the class.

2. You can find images and additional information on your area and post the links online to make your presentation more interesting.

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Group 5: A Historical Debate: Hero or villain?

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Group 5: A Historical Debate: Hero or villain?

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1. How does each side describe Ned Kelly and his actions?

2. Which side do you fall on - was Ned Kelly a hero deserving of celebration and remembrance or a murderous villain deserving to be buried in an unmarked grave - give evidence for your answer.

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Bushranger Ned Kelly will be laid to rest in an unmarked grave alongside his mother more than 130 years after his death, but debate has been reignited over his funeral.

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Group 6: Three Different Views of Ned Kelly

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Group 6: Three Different Views of Ned Kelly

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Henry Turner described Ned Kelly as 'a shabby skulker', but observed 'It was a humiliating reflection … that the whole machinery of Government, the apparent zeal of a well-disciplined and costly police service, the stimulus of enormous rewards, and an expenditure of fully £100,000 were, for two whole years, insufficient to check the predatory career of these four reckless dare-devil boys'.

Clive Turnbull claims that 'Ned Kelly is the best known Australian, our only folk hero … Popular instinct has found in Kelly a type of manliness much to be esteemed—to reiterate: courage, resolution, independence, sympathy with the under-dog'. The legend brought into being the phrase, 'As game as Ned Kelly', for describing the ultimate in bravery, inspired numberless imaginative tales and folk-ballads, and has taken new life in Sidney Nolan's series of Kelly-gang paintings. The legend still persists and seemingly has a compelling quality that appeals to something deeply rooted in the character of the 'average' Australian

Describe each of the author's views of Ned Kelly - How does each author portray Ned Kelly - As hero or villain?

Whose viewpoint do you personally believe is most accurate? Is Ned Kelly a hero deserving of being celebrated in Australian history or a villain best forgotten?

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Bushranger Ned Kelly

'I am a Widow's Son, outlawed and my orders must be obeyed'. With these chilling words bushranger Ned Kelly ended the Jerilderie letter, a detailed written justification of his actions in the year before his death.

Kelly's words, transcribed in the Jerilderie letter, are regarded by some as an early call for an Australian republic.

It would be easy to assume that the Kelly Gang members were tough, ignorant, uneducated men who mindlessly pursued a career in crime. But both Ned Kelly and Joe Byrne could read and write, and wrote letters to the press and others, explaining their situation and calling for justice. The most famous of these is the ‘Jerilderie Letter'.

Written in 1879, the 8000-word long letter details Kelly's thoughts about being ‘forced' into becoming an outlaw. It also calls for the resignation of a corrupt police force that, Kelly maintained, preyed upon Irish Catholic settlers.

Although there is little use of punctuation and correct grammar, the letter is a powerful insight into his feelings and his desire to set the record straight:

I have been wronged and my mother and four or five men lagged innocent and is my brothers and sisters and my mother not to be pitied also who has no alternative only to put up with the brutal and cowardly conduct off a parcel of big ugly fat-necked wombat headed big bellied magpie legged narrow hipped splaw-footed sons of Irish Bailiffs or english landlords which is better known as Officers of Justice or Victorian Police who some call honest gentlemen.

– Ned Kelly

After robbing a local bank of £2000, Kelly gave the letter to the bank's accountant – Edwin Living – and told him to have it published and distributed, under threat of violence.
But despite Kelly's threats, Living never published the letter. He took it to the bank's head office in Melbourne, where it was lent to the police for Kelly's trial. It was later returned to Living, whose family donated it to the State Library of Victoria in 2000.

With this letter 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... The language is colourful, rough and full of metaphors; it is one of the most extraordinary documents in Australian history.
– Kelly historian, Alex McDermott
1. Identify areas where Ned Kelly justifies his actions - what reasons does he give?

2. Do you believe that Ned Kelly was heroic in his anger and use of violence against the police at Stringybark or a villainous murderer?

3. Why does the Jerilderie letter make many Australians consider Ned Kelly to be a courageous heroic figure in Australian history? Do you agree?