Such is Life.

The Last Gunfight of Ned Kelly

By Glenn Zwiers
loined from, It proved a likely spot because part of onnie and Clyde. Al Capone. Robin or willingly Hood. Every nation has its leg- Kellys mission involved derailing the police donated by, endary bandits, the anti-hero that train that transported police officers to his local farmers. haunts the psyche of a societys crime scenes and frequently confounded A group of consciousness in a strange love/hate his plans. To accomplish this, Kelly planned nearly 800 relationship. Bushranger, a romanticized term to remove a section of the track on the arm ed supunique in Australia, describes a group of Wangaratta side of the platform and thus port ers ral traveling outlaws who rape, rob and pillage derail the police train after it passed lied behind to survive. In Australia, the infamous out- through Glenrowan, making it vulnerable Kelly and his to ambush. law Ned Kelly more than earned the title. gang who Decades ago, Rocker Mick Jagger planned to played Ned in a fictionalized movie battle it out with the police and take that cut a meager path around the all survivors hostage. In addition, Ned world. While the movie failed to make forced a gang of railway workers in pulses race, the real Kelly stopped the vicinity of the hotel to tear up a many a heart during his illustrious section of the r ailwa y l i ne t o t he career. Throughout his short life Kelly nor th of the Glenrowan platform. pitted himself against corrupt police The train was only 12 hours away and government officials and, as a At the Glenrowan Inn toward result, his crimes like those of evening about 60 people waited with Robin Hood, appealed to the commounting apprehension. In the hills moner and earned their empathy. He above the town, an additional number frequently lectured victims he kidof armed supporters waited with napped about the woes and evils of growing frustration for a prearranged the authorities. Kellys personally signal for them to join the battle. A designed, metal, bulletproof helmet festive air prevailed at the inn that and suit added to his mystique. But Sunday as the party consumed vast Kellys last stand at Glenrowan, probquantities of liquor, listen to music ably fired the imagination of and improvised dances to entertain Australians the most and cemented themselves. The Kelly gang sensed litKelly as a legend for all time. tle antipathy toward them. One of Born in 1854 in Wallan, Australia, their prisoners, Thomas Curnow, the Kelly grew up as delinquent, petty local schoolmaster, seemed particucriminal and graduated to a full fledge larly helpful. Kelly had captured felon and a murderer early in life. Curnow during an earlier buggy ride Kelly aspired to head a small army and and bailed [tied] him up alongside his wreak havoc across northeastern wife and sister at the inn. Curnow Victoria. Eventually, if things went informed Kelly of the whereabouts of well, he planned to lead a civil upristhe local policeman, Constable ing. Bracken, and warned him the local In June of 1880, Kelly decided to stationmaster possessed a loaded gun. rest, hide and plot this adventure at As a result, Kelly and his band quickly the declining city of Glenrowan. Upon A small museum in Glenrowan displays Ned Kelly body armor. snatched Bracken. arriving, he q u i c k l y c o m m a n As midnight passed and the alcod e e r e d A n n J o n e s s Glenrowan The day of the planned attack arrived, hol ran out, a sense of foreboding fell upon Inn, little more than a simple iron-roofed weatherboard hut with a verandah in front and the gang gathered their protective Kelly, and he considered abandoning the and a slab at the rear, located adjacent to the armour forged in an improvised bush forge train attack. This change of heart may have from mould boards and ploughshares pur- contributed to his ill-fated decision to Glenrowan railway platform.
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relent to Curnows pleading to allow him to contrived to escape during the take his wife and sister home. But instead night, preferring to take their of taking the two women home as he prom- chances in the crossfire rather ised, Curnow decided to warn the train. He than remain inside. One, Mrs. quickly set out on foot heading south along Reardon a railway workers wife, clutched her baby as she ran. A the railway line holding his sisters red scarf bullet passed through the shawl in one hand and a lantern in the other. At about three oclock t h e p o l i c e in which she wrapped the infant, train approached Glenrowan and Curnow narrowly missing the child. Her flagged it down and informed those on 19-year-old son was less fortuboard that the Kelly gang waited in town. nate. A police bullet cracked him When the people at the inn heard the train in the shoulder and stopped just approach, a scene of great confusion short of his heart, but he surensued. As the gang clambered into their vived. For some unknown reason, cumbersome suits of armour, Constable Bracken escaped and dashed across to the under fire Ned Kelly returned station to arrive as the train pulled in. After alone and used his gun to fight the trained lumbered to a stop, 10 police- his way back inside just in time men and six aborigine trackers disembarked to see Joe Byrne receive a devaswith their horses. Five newspaper reporters tating wound to the groin and fall, writhing in agony.Kelly followed. watched him die. Afterward he As the police advanced on the now darkened inn, everyone inside lay down on stumbled outside, and shot at the floor. The four-gang members came out police, until he eventually fell on the verandah and opened fire on the exhausted to the ground in a police, which retaliated in kind. Early in the bush at the rear of the inn, out of encounter bullets struck Ned Kelly in the range of the police guns. left arm, and shortly after in the right foot Meanwhile the battle raged on, where a bullet ripped through his big between the police and the two remaining bushrangers. toe and came out at the As daylight of ankle. Gang members the second day Joe Bryne (wounded in broke Ned Kelly the calf) Steve Hart and summoned new N e d s b r o t h e r D a n reserves and stumretreated back inside bled back into the the inn, where bullets fray, a revolver in ripped through the flimhis right hand, his sy weatherboards with left arm awash great intensity. with blood. He Inn owner Ann might no doubt Joness two children, have escaped, but 13-year-old Jack and 5returned to help year-old Jane both susfree his two surtained injuries. Jack viving accomplices. mortally, in the stomSeeing Kelly for ach, and Jane, seriously the first time in but not fatally, in the daylight, the police head. Ned, despite his watched in amazewounds, reached the ment as a grotesque back of the inn, where, figur e, its head armour and all, he encased in a metal mounted a horse and cylinder with only made off planning to a narrow slit for join his supporters in eyes and a coat the hills and regroup. Glenn stands near a giant statue of Ned on the roadside near dr aped over its Nine police rein- Glenrowan. heavy breastplate, forcem e nt s a rri v e d Sunday night with more on the way. By day- a d v a n c i n g i n e xorably toward them. break the next day more than 30 police Bullets bounced off the armour, until two formed a semicircle around the hotel and shots fired at Kellys legs sent him reeling exchanged fire with the bushrangers. One backward. Police took Kelly to the railway station Sergeant Steele in a frenzy, fired wildly at the building, until a threat from one of his where his wounds were tended. By midown constables caused him to cease. A morning all the remaining hostages, except group of remaining hostages inside the inn one, an elderly man called Martin Cheny,
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who sustained a stomach shot that eventually resulted in his death, were allowed to leave the inn. However, the fight continued. Frustrated by continued resistance, the constables decided to destroy the building and telegraphed Melbourne to request a cannon. However, by mid-afternoon, the shooting from inside had ceased, a n d t h e y d e c i d e d instead to burn it down. One of the police approached cautiously with bales of straw and a can of kerosene and set the inn alight. It quickly turned into a fiery blaze. The cataclysmic scene brought nearly a century of Australian bushranging to an end. Kelly recovered from his wounds to stand trial before Sir Redmond Barry on 28 October 1880 charged with murder. The next day the jury returned a verdict of guilty, and Redmond imposed a sentence of death. After the judge pronounced his sentence, Kelly said, I will see you there, where I go! Despite widespread appeals for mercy, they hanged Kelly at Melbourne on the morning of 11 November 1880. Neds famous last words were, Such is life. Kellys body, like those of several bushrangers before him, suffered desecration after death. As though he were some freak of nature, his head was cut off and subjected to phrenological examination.
Glenn Zwiers owns World Emporium in Lilydale, Victoria Australia and is the SFCs chief instructor of Australia. Website: emporium@alphalink.com.au