The police soon believed that Ned and Dan Kelly were involved in the horse-stealing. On the fateful night of April 15, 1878, Constable Alexander Fitzpatrick from Benalla police station, who knew the Kellys well and was even a sort of friend, went alone to the Kelly homestead at Greta in connection with arrest warrants issued for the two brothers. No-one is quite sure what happened that night. Fitzpatrick claimed Ned Kelly had drawn a gun on him and shot him in the wrist, but Ned always said Fitzpatrick had hurt his wrist on the latch while hurrying to get out of the door after being sent packing by the clan. The Kellys also claimed that the constable was drunk, that he’d ‘got fresh’ with Kate Kelly and that Ned wasn’t even there when it happened. Whatever the truth—and it might lie somewhere between the two versions—Fitzpatrick (who by the way was later dismissed from the police for bad behaviour)—went back to the station and claimed Ned Kelly had tried to kill him and that he had been attacked by Ned’s mother and brother-in-law, and a friend of theirs. The dramatic result can probably be said to have started all the troubles that came later. Ned’s mother, brother-in-law and friend were arrested, but Ned and Dan had made themselves scarce, escaping into the bush where they worked as gold prospectors. At about this time, Steve Hart joined them, and Joe was soon added to the party.
After Mrs Kelly and the others were sentenced, the hunt for the Kelly boys began in earnest. A police party was put together at Greta and at Mansfield. The four-man party from Mansfield consisted of Sergeant Michael Kennedy, Mounted Constable Michael Scanlon, Mounted Constable Thomas Lonigan, and Constable Thomas McIntyre. They were all excellent bushmen and crack shots and were heavily armed when they went into the forest at Stringybark Creek on October 25, 1879. The next day Ned and his friends came across them unexpectedly and bailed up MacIntyre and Lonigan. McIntyre surrendered at once, but Lonigan jumped behind a log and took cover. When he raised his head to fire, he was shot dead. The two other policemen, Scanlon and Kennedy, returned to the camp later that day and were bailed up, but refused to surrender. Scanlon was shot dead almost at once, but Kennedy managed to get off his horse and fight bravely for a while. Eventually, however, he was killed as well.
Meanwhile, McIntyre had escaped on Kennedy’s horse. Fearing the gang would be after him, he ditched the horse and hid for the rest of the night in a wombat hole before staggering into Mansfield to raise the alarm. His first statement to the police seemed to back up Ned’s often-repeated claim that the policemen had been shot in self-defence during a gunfight, but later he changed his testimony, saying the men had been shot in cold blood. It was this version which was given at Ned Kelly’s trial.
After the deaths of the three policemen, Ned and Dan Kelly (who McIntyre knew by sight) were outlawed, along with two other men he had not recognised (but who turned out to be Joe Byrne and Steve Hart). People were outraged and horrified by what the bushrangers had done, and a big reward was offered for the Kelly gang’s capture. On the run, Ned Kelly organised the Euroa bank raid and then the Jerilderie bank raid. Because of their boldness, and the fact they had not fired a shot or hurt anyone at all during the raids, but behaved well, public opinion changed and they started to be seen as legends. At Jerilderie, Ned Kelly had dictated a letter to Joe Byrne which tried to tell the story of what had happened. He wrote several such documents throughout his life, trying to make people understand the tragic happenings at Stringybark Creek from his point of view. He wanted it to be published, but it never was in his lifetime, though some newspapers told their readers about it. You can read it now in several books and also online. It’s known as the Jerilderie Letter.
Though after the bank raids the reward for the gang’s capture was immediately increased to £8,000 (several million dollars in today’s money), no-one ever tried to turn them in. For nearly two years—the timeframe of this book—the outlaws were hunted high and low over the whole of north-east Victoria, but always managed to stay one step ahead. The police employed dozens of informers and sent out many search parties, but they did not handle it well at all and made many mistakes. They also harassed and persecuted the Kelly family and supporters as well as a good many other people; at one stage you could be arrested on the spot and flung into gaol without charge just for having perhaps once met Ned Kelly and his friends.
It was not until the gang burst out of hiding in late June 1880, at Glenrowan, that anyone in authority had any idea where they were.
Here’s an irony to end this account: the year after the siege at Glenrowan and Ned Kelly’s trial (which many people today believe to have been less than fair) there was a Royal Commission set up into the conduct of the police before, during and after the ‘Kelly Outbreak’. As a result of this very thorough enquiry, many members of the police were reprimanded, sacked or demoted, including some very high-up people.
Though this book is a work of fiction, featuring fictional characters as well as real people, I have used, where possible, real quotes from people who knew Ned and his friends, such as some of the remarks of James Ingram, the bookseller in Beechworth, whose actual descriptions of Ned and Joe’s behaviour are to be found in JJ Kenneally’s fascinating book, The Complete Inner History of the Kelly Gang and Their Pursuers, which was written in the 1920s, when some of the Kelly family, such as Jim Kelly, Ned’s brother, were still alive (there is a letter from him to the author in the book). I have also used many of Ned’s own writings, including the Jerilderie Letter and other letters he dictated from prison, as well as actual trial documents, newspaper reports and so on. The song ‘The Ballad of the Kelly Gang’, which is real, is thought to have been written by Joe Byrne, who was something of a poet and wrote several other songs of this sort.
As well as JJ Kenneally’s book, I used the following excellent books as sources: Ian Jones’s Ned Kelly—A Short Life, The Ned Kelly Encyclopaedia by Justin Corfield, Ned Kelly by John Molony, and Ned Kelly—The Authentic Illustrated History by Keith McMenomy.
As to the photograph of the Kelly gang which my fictional young photographers Ellen and Jamie Ross take — it actually exists. At least, it exists as a postcard in the collection of the National Library of Australia, printed from an original photograph which has since been lost. The photo is undocumented and no-one knows who took it, where, or when. There were many travelling photographers going around the countryside in those days, and it was likely taken by one of them. The photographer must have been in a hurry, because in the picture you can actually see a tripod and negative box leaning against a tree!
When I saw it for the first time as a reproduction in Beechworth many years ago, I was immediately fascinated, for if it is authentic—and it is believed that’s likely—it is the only picture in existence of at least part of the gang while they were on the run. Though Ned and Dan Kelly are definitely thought to be in the picture, the third figure has been identified variously as Steve Hart or as Isaiah ‘Wild’ Wright, a close friend of the gang.
I bought a copy of the postcard and stuck it on a wall, thinking one day I must do something about it. And so here we are …
Acknowledgements
The photograph on the cover, ‘Suit of armour worn by Ned Kelly’ (mp003622), is reproduced with the kind permission of The Pictures Collection, State Library of Victoria.
The photograph on page 187, ‘The Kelly Gang – from an original photograph, Steve Hart, Dan Kelly, Ned Kelly’ (nla. pic-an14034948), is reproduced with the kind permission of the National Library of Australia.
About the Author
SOPHIE MASSON
Born in Indonesia of French parents, Sophie Masson was sent to France to live with her grandmother when she was a baby and came to Australia with her family when she was five. Educated in Sydney, she also spent a good deal of her childhood in France, as the family often went back. A dedicated bookworm as a kid, Sophie also loved writing stories to entertain herself and her younger sisters and brothers.
Now the author of more than fifty novels for young people, Sophie is published in many d
ifferent countries. She lives in rural New South Wales with her husband, and has three grown-up children.
Scholastic Press
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First published by Scholastic Australia in 2010.
Text copyright © Sophie Masson, 2010.
Cover copyright © Scholastic Australia, 2010.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher, unless specifically permitted under the Australian Copyright Act 1968 as amended.
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National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry
Author: Masson, Sophie, 1959-
Title: The hunt for Ned Kelly / Sophie Masson.
ISBN: 9781741695649 (pbk.)
Subjects: Kelly, Ned, 1855-1880–Juvenile fiction.
Dewey Number: A823.3
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eISBN: 978-1-921-99072-4
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