by Peter Carey
What is it about we Australians, eh? he demanded. What is wrong with us? Do we not have a Jefferson? A Disraeli? Might not we find someone betterto admire than a horse-thief and a murderer? Must we always make such an embarrassing spectacle of ourselves?
In private, his relationship with Ned Kelly was more complicated, and the souvenir he carried from Glenrowan seems to have made its own private demands upon his sympathy. The evidence provided by the manuscript suggests that in the years after the Siege of Glenrowan he continued to labour obsessively over the construction of the dead man’s sentences, and it was he who made those small grey pencil marks with which the original manuscript is decorated.
12 page pamphlet in the collection of the Mitchell Library,
Sydney. Contains elements in common with the handwritten
account in the Melbourne Library (V.L. 10453). The author
identified solely by the initials S.C. Printer: Thomas
Warriner & Sons, Melbourne, 1955, the year following
Thomas Curnow’s death.
DEATH OF EDWARD KELLY
Colonel Rede, the Sheriff for the Central Bailiwick, was attended by Mr Ellis, the Under-Sheriff, and presented himself at the door of the condemned cell punctually at 10 o’clock to demand the body of Edward Kelly in order to carry out the awful sentence of death. Mr. Castieau, the Governor of MelbourneGaol, had some little time previously visited the prisoner, and seen his irons knocked off; and the necessary warrant being presented by the Sheriff, he tapped at the door, and the prisoner was made acquainted with the fearful fact that his last hour had arrived. All this time Upjohn, the hangman, who was officiating in this horrible capacity for the first time, had remained unseen; but upon the door of Kelly’s cell being opened, the signal was given and he emerged from the condemned cell opposite, now occupied by his first victim. He stepped across the scaffold quietly and, as he did so, quietly turned his head and looked down upon the spectators, revealing a fearfully repulsive countenance.
The hangman is an old man about 70 years of age, but broad-shouldered and burly. As he was serving a sentence when he volunteered for this dreadful office, and as that sentence is still unexpired, he is closely shaved and cropped, and wears the prison dress. Thick bristles of a pure white stick up all over his crown and provide him a ghastly appearance. He has heavy features altogether, the nose perhaps being the most striking and ugly.
As this was Upjohn’s first attempt at hanging, Dr Barker was present alongside the drop, to see that the knot was placed in the right position. Upjohn disappeared into the condemned cell, and proceeded to pinion Kelly with a strong broad leather belt. The prisoner, however, remarked, “You need not pinion me,” but was, of course, told that it was indispensable.
Preceded by the crucifix, which was held up before him by the officiating priests, Kelly was then led onto the platform. He had not been shaved or cropped, but was in prison clothes. He seemed calm and collected, but paler than usual, although this effect might have been produced by the white cap placed over his head, but not yet drawn down over his face. As he stepped on the drop, he remarked in a low tone, “Such is life.”
The hangman then proceeded to adjust the rope, the Deans in the meantime reading the prayer proper to the Catholic Church on such occasions. The prisoner winced slightly at the first touch of the rope, but quickly recovered himself and moved his head in order to facilitate the work of Upjohn in fixing the knot properly. No sooner was the knot fixed than, without the prisoner being afforded a chance of saying anything more, the signal was given; and the hangman, pulling down the cap, stepped back and, withdrawing the bolt, had done his work.
At the same instant, the mortal remains of Ned Kelly were swinging some eight feet below where he had been previously standing. At first it appeared as if death had been instantaneous, for there was for a second or two only the usual shudder that passes through the frame of hanged men; but then the legs were drawn up for some distance, and then fell suddenly again. This movement was repeated several times, but finally all motion ceased, and at the end of four minutes all was over, and Edward Kelly had gone to a higher tribunal to answer for his faults and crimes. The body was allowed to remain hanging the usual time, and the formal inquest was afterwards held. The outlaw had requested that his mother might be released from MelbourneGaol and his body handed over for burial in consecrated ground. Neither of these requests were granted, and the remains were buried within the precincts of the gaol.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wish to thank Paul Priday and Sam Carey, who accompanied me on my initial research trip to North Eastern Victoria; Laurie Muller and Richard Leplastrier, who were my companions and instructors on a later visit; and Esmai and Ken Wortman whose trust in me I have attempted to honour in these pages.
I owe a particular debt to these books: John McQuilton’s The Kelly Outbreak, Kevin Passey and Gary Dean’s Harry Power: Tutor of Ned Kelly, Henry Glassie’s Irish Folktales, Keith McMenomy’s Ned Kelly: The Authentic Illustrated Story and Ian Jones’ Ned Kelly: A Short Life. Of these, it is Ian Jones I am most particularly obliged to. It was to his works I turned, almost daily, when I was lost or bewildered or simply forgetful of the facts.
Many other people were helpful. Peter Smalley, Kevin Rapley, Diane Gardiner, Roland Martyn, Roy Foster and Evan Boland all led me towards information that had previously eluded me. Joe Crowley acted as my research assistant in Australia. Terry O’Hanlon applied a stern eye to matters agricultural. Sharon Olds and David Williamson read late drafts of the manuscript and contributed useful and constructive criticism.
I laboured for four exhilarating weeks in collaboration with my editor Gary Fisketjon, whose green spiderweb annotations (delivered daily by messenger from midtown Manhattan, or Franklin, Tennessee, or Adelaide, South Australia) sometimes precipitated a storm of silent debate but always, day after day, page after page, resulted in a tighter, truer, better book. Who says there are no great editors anymore?
Finally, my greatest debt is to my wife, Alison Summers, whose clear literary intelligence and flawless dramatic instinct illuminated and clarified a work that at times threatened to swamp and drown me.
PETER CAREY
TRUE HISTORY OF THE KELLY GANG
Born in Australia in 1943, Peter Carey lives in New York City with his wife, Alison Summers, and their two sons. The author of six previous novels and a collection of stories, he won the Booker Prize for Oscar and Lucinda; his other honors include the Commonwealth Prize and the Miles Franklin Award.
ALSO BY PETER CAREY
Jack Maggs
The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith
The Tax Inspector
Oscar and Lucinda
Bliss
Illywhacker
The Fat Man in History
FIRST VINTAGE INTERNATIONAL EDITION, JANUARY 2002
Copyright © 2000 by Peter Carey Map by James Sinclair, copyright © 2001 by Random House, Inc.
Vintage is a registered trademark and Vintage International and
colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the Knopf edition as follows:
Carey, Peter.
True history of the Kelly gang / Peter Carey.
p. cm.
1. Kelly, Ned, 1855–1880—Fiction. 2. Bushrangers—Fiction.
3. Australia—Fiction. I. Title.
PR9619.3.C36 T7 2001
823’.914—dc21 00-042853
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eISBN: 978-0-307-42983-4
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