Ned Kelly: Australian Outlaw

In the meantime, the police continued to fire upon the Inn until it was at last set ablaze. Once the fire had subsided enough to enter the police found both Dan Kelly and Steve Hart, along with two of the hostages, dead. Ned Kelly was taken alive. He was found to be wearing under his armour the green sash he had been awarded for saving a child’s life all those years earlier.  

Ned was imprisoned in Melbourne to await trial, though he was removed to the town of Beechworth for the committal proceedings. In the meantime, his sister Maggie tried to raise the funds for his defence. The money raised was never enough and Ned’s Defense Counsel was inadequate to the task confronting them. Indeed, Ned was to lament that he had not been permitted to defend himself.

The trial began on 28 October in Melbourne, the presiding judge was Redmond Barry, a fellow Irishman who had long held a grudge against the Kelly family. It was admitted in Court that the police had long wanted to see Ned hanged and this tied in with the long held belief that Ned had only acted only under extreme provocation. But the facts were stark. His career as a murderer and bank robber was by now well established. The verdict was inevitable and the jury spent only 25 minutes in its deliberations before passing it – guilty!

The Judge Redmond Barry and Ned now involved themselves in a long debate about the facts surrounding the case in open court. Ned defended himself well but it could make no difference to the sentence. Barry took obvious delight in passing sentence, ” Edward Kelly, I hereby sentence you to death by hanging. May the Lord have mercy on your soul.” Ned replied, ” I will see soon you there.”

Ned Kelly was hanged in Melbourne Jail on 8 November, 1880. A petition had been started pleading for clemency for Ned that was to garner more than 30,000 signatures but it failed to move the Authorities. His mother’s last words to him were ” Mind you die like a Kelly.” His own last words were ” Such is life.”