January 17, 2013

The headless remains of Ned Kelly, the most famous of Australia’s bushrangers, are to be buried in an unmarked grave at Greta, Australia, on Sunday, 150 years after he was hanged in Melbourne. Bushrangers were criminals who operated in country districts of Australia from about 1790 until 1900. A bank robber and thief, Kelly is regarded by some as a cruel and vicious criminal. But he also became an Australian folk hero and a symbol of revolt against authority and injustice.

Kelly was born in 1854 in Beveridge, near Melbourne, in what is now the Australian state of Victoria. He was imprisoned twice before he reached the age of 20. In 1871, he was convicted of receiving a stolen horse and jailed. After his release in 1874, Kelly led an honest life for three years before turning to horse and cattle theft.

In 1878, Ned Kelly, along with his brother Dan and several friends, fled from the police after injuring a police officer who was attempting to arrest Dan. When police attempted to capture the gang at a hideout in the Wombat Ranges in northeastern Victoria, the outlaws killed three police officers in a shootout.

In early 1880, the Kelly gang stole or were given plow blades from local farmers and used the tools to fashion helmets and suits of armor. They hoped to establish a Republic of Northeastern Victoria. In June 1880, the gang raided the railway village of Glenrowan and held townsfolk captive in an inn. Police attacked the inn, and the gunfight became a siege. Ned Kelly was badly wounded but escaped the inn. However, the rest of the gang was killed. He later returned to the inn hoping to rescue his companions, but he was arrested.

Ned Kelly, dressed in his famous homemade armor, appears at the 1880 Siege of Glenrowan in "Glenrowan," one of a number of paintings of the battle between the Kelly gang and police painted by Sir Sidney Nolan in 1956 and 1957. (Tate Gallery, London (Art Resource))

Kelly stood trial for murder in October 1880. He was found guilty and was hanged in the Melbourne jail on Nov. 11, 1880. His last words were, reportedly, “such is life.” Kelly’s remains were buried in a mass grave at the Melbourne jail. After Melbourne jail closed in 1929, Kelly’s bones were exhumed and reburied at a mass grave at Pentridge Prison in Melbourne. His head went missing at that point. In 2009, all of the bones buried at Pentridge were exhumed. Scientists performed DNA tests on the remains and compared the results with that of one of Kelly’s descendants. In this manner, they were able in 2011 to identify all of Kelly’s remains except for his head, which remains missing. The Australian authorities turned Kelly’s remains over to his family, who announced that they would bury the remains in a private ceremony.

Kelly became a folk hero in Australia for standing up to the country’s ruling class, and his gang became a symbol for the tensions that existed between the country’s wealthy establishment and its poor Irish farmers. His life and deeds have been widely represented in art. The famed Australian painter Sir Sidney Nolan became well known for a series of paintings that depicted Kelly. Peter Carey’s historical novel True History of the Kelly Gang won the Booker Prize in 2001. Australian actor Heath Ledger portrayed Kelly in a 2003 film adaptation of Carey’s novel.

Additional World Book articles:

• Australia, History of
• Australian literature
• Colonial life in Australia and New Zealand
• Gardiner, Frank
• Whitehead, John