Edward "Ned" Kelly (3 June 1855 – 11 November 1880) was an Australian bushranger. He has become a symbolic figure in Australian history, folklore, books, art and movies. As a national icon, his image was used during the opening ceremony of the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney. He is remembered in the saying "... as game as Ned Kelly"; the word game in this case meaning brave.
While he was growing up, his family was often in trouble with the police. After fighting a policeman at his home in 1878, Kelly went to the bush to hide. He murdered three policemen who were searching for him. The government made Ned, his brother, and two friends outlaws. They became known as the Kelly Gang. Ned Kelly led the gang to rob a number of banks, and even capture a whole town. A final violent fight with police took place at Glenrowan. Kelly, dressed in home-made metal armour and helmet, was captured and sent to trial. Found guilty, he was hanged at the Melbourne Gaol in 1880.
A painting of Kelly by Australian artist Sidney Nolan was sold in 2010 for AU$5.4 million, the highest price ever paid for an Australian painting.
Early life
Beveridge
Edward 'Ned' Kelly was born in Canadia, north of Melbourne, in June 1855. The actual date is not known because the birth was not registered on the government list of births, deaths and marriages in Victoria. His prison records give the date as 1856. He was the son of Irish Catholic parents, John "Red" Kelly and Ellen Quinn. Red Kelly had been a convict who had been sent to Van Diemen's Land in 1842 for stealing two pigs. He moved to Victoria in 1848. He met Ellen Quinn, who had come to Victoria from Ireland with her family in 1841. Red started working for Ellen's father, James Quinn, who was a farmer at Beveridge. Ned was probably born at his grandfather's house. Around 1860, Red built a small house for his family, which is still standing in Kelly Street.
Avenel
When Ned was about nine, his father moved the family north to a new farm at Avenel. Ned saved a young boy, Richard Shelton, from drowning in Hughes Creek. The Shelton family, who owned the Royal Mail Hotel, gave Ned a sash made from green silk for his bravery. The sash was long and wide. He was wearing this sash under his armour when he was captured at Glenrowan. The sash, still covered in Ned Kelly's blood, is now kept in the Benalla Museum. Red was not a successful farmer and was soon arrested for stealing cattle. In May 1866, he was given one month in prison and had to pay a fine of £25. Red died on 27 December 1866, and is buried in the Avenel Cemetery.
Greta
Ellen Kelly moved the family to Greta. There were other members of Ellen's family living in the area. Her father, James Quinn, had moved from Beveridge to a large farm, called Glenmore, on the King River in north east Victoria. Her sisters, Catherine and Jane, and their ten children, were farming at Greta. Their husbands, brothers John and Thomas Lloyd, were in prison for stealing cattle. When Ellen came to Greta, her brothers, James, William and John Quinn, moved from Glenmore to help the sisters and their families. Some of the Quinn family had also been sent to prison for cattle stealing. James, Ellen's brother, had been charged ten times for cattle stealing. In 1868, Red Kelly's brother, James Kelly, came to visit Ellen. He got drunk and after an argument with the sisters, tried to burn their house down. He was given the death penalty, but this was later changed to 15 years in prison. The police thought the whole family were trouble makers and criminal.
Ellen Kelly and her children moved to a farm on the Eleven Mile Creek, between Greta and Glenrowan. Ned Kelly started work cutting down trees, breaking in horses, herding cattle and putting up fences.
Gaol
On 14 October 1869, 14-year-old Ned was arrested for stealing money from a Chinese man. Kelly spent ten days in the police station lockup but there was not enough proof to send Ned to court and he had to be set free. Ned also worked in the bush with ex-convict Harry Power.
Power had escaped from a Melbourne Gaol and started bushranging. Kelly was arrested in May 1870 for helping Power to rob people. He was kept in the gaol at Kyneton for seven weeks. Soon after this, Ned was in trouble again. With his uncle, Jack Lloyd, Ned had got into a fight with a hawker (a traveling salesman). They then sent a rude letter and some calf's testicles to the hawker's wife. In October 1870 he was sent to Beechworth gaol for assault and for being rude to a lady. He spent five months in Gaol.