On Saturday, February 22, 2019, the Greta Heritage Group held the second of what is planned to be an annual Ned Kelly themed event to raise funds to maintain and modernise the 104 year-old Greta-Hansonville hall. The previous theme was Max Brown’s Australian Son, this year the topic was The Armour: The Myths, The Facts.
Adrian Younger, master of ceremonies
Tickets for the event were sold out quickly this year and the numbers were bigger than the previous event. Support came from various quarters, with the Ned Kelly Vault in Beechworth loaning out their replicas of the armour to be displayed at the event. Each attendee received a goodie bag with postcards, a printout of documents pertaining to the armour, a copy of Chester Eagle’s The Armour and as a final sweet treat there was a small packet of Minties.
The event opened with a reading by Alan Crichton of a poem he had written about the armour that evoked the wild notion of the so-called Republic of North Eastern Victoria and the idea of the gang as “Knights of old”. There’s no doubt that Crichton has a gift for the written word and it was a perfect piece to set the mood.
Alan Crichton
The first presentation was Noeleen Lloyd’s run-down of the history of the armour. The story of the mysterious creation of the four iconic suits of iron and their subsequent misadventures through the siege of Glenrowan then years of being bounced around various owners, being jumbled, having bits stolen or acquired on the sly, attempts to destroy them and then eventually being recognised as culturally significant enough to display, is an incredible tale in itself. Noeleen’s talk covered this concisely, cleverly and without any need to discuss the moral arguments about the actions of the bushrangers or police.
Noeleen Lloyd
The second presentation was by blacksmith Nick Hawtin. Hawtin was tasked with creating exact replicas of the armour for the township of Jerilderie and in so doing gained some fascinating insights into how the armour may have been constructed. After a video of the Catalyst report on tests performed on Joe Byrne’s armour was shown, Nick spoke about his experience in studying the minute details of each suit and analysing the materials and process. He identified that while the majority of the steel was from plough mouldboards, there was also sheet metal used and likely much of it was scrap metal from various blacksmiths. By incorporating his knowledge of the craft, culture and history of blacksmithing, he was able to recognise the methodology used, the likely tools used and subsequently offer some valuable insights into the process. By virtue of the processes used it is incredibly unlikely that the suits were constructed in the bush or by one person. If the story of the suits being constructed by a creek have any validity, he supposed that it was that the armour was adjusted there rather than constructed in the bush. There was enough material in Nick Hawtin’s account to fill a decent sized book and hopefully some day we can get a published account of his knowledge.
Nick Hawtin
The third presentation was by Brad Webb of ironoutlaw.com. He discussed Ned Kelly in popular culture, drawing upon early etchings in illustrated newspapers through to film, television and comics, but especially comics (Webb believes Ned Kelly provided inspiration for the superhero The Invincible Iron-Man). There is no doubt that the Kelly armour has captured the imagination of countless people around the world and continues to do so.
Brad Webb
At this time there was a brief change of pace as Nick Hawtin got his forge fired up to demonstrate the difficulty in adequately heating steel of the thickness and type used for the armour. After several minutes of cranking a fan to heat up the coke the crowd was ushered inside for lunch to emerge again when the metal was heated. It was evident from the demonstration that a bush forge would have been impractical and inadequate in heating up the sheets of metal used to craft the armour, further asserting that the bulk of construction must have occurred in blacksmith shops, likely by multiple smiths.
Nick Hawtin demonstrates the ancient art of blacksmithing
The final presentation was by artist Joe Zapp, who had been painting a portrait of Ned throughout proceedings. He discussed his work and his fundraising before auctioning off the painting and some prints. Zapp uses an impressionist style to create images quickly and expressively. The result is a stylised portrait that is endowed with feeling and movement. The sale of his work raised a fair amount for the hall and no doubt the buyers will be pleased as punch with their purchases.
Joe Zapp with the painting he created during proceedings
It was fantastic to see so many people turn out for the event and demonstrating their mutual love for the Kelly story while supporting the fantastic work done by the Greta volunteers. While the Kelly story seems to often bring out the worst in people online, in person it seems to be a very different situation and it’s nice to be reminded that a mutual appreciation for history and folklore can be a wonderful tool for uniting people rather than a device for dividing them.
Despite their infamy, the Kelly Gang were hardly prolific in any sense as far as bushrangers are concerned, but perhaps it’s a matter of quality over quantity. The second raid they undertook was one of the most audacious in history and definitely ranks with anything performed by the likes of Ben Hall or Dan Morgan. Yet, there are many conflicting accounts that vary in small details so creating an accurate and concise account is no small feat.
Since December 1878 the Kelly Gang had gone to ground and, despite the best efforts of the police, they had avoided capture easily. A change in police leadership saw Superintendent Hare take the reins from Superintendent Nicolson with no noticeable change in effect. The gang meanwhile were plotting. A morally dubious undertaking by the police saw scores of people arrested and imprisoned indefinitely on remand as suspected sympathisers. This no doubt put a strain on many of the poor farms in the region and would have infuriated Ned Kelly, who had already identified himself as a figurehead for the struggles of the smaller farmers against the oppressive influence of certain squatters and police.
The gang had a plan to ride across the border into New South Wales and rob a bank. The banks in Victoria had all been allocated guards since the Euroa robbery and the New South Wales police had bragged that the Kelly Gang wouldn’t last 24 hours in their colony. The gang were determined to prove them wrong. They used Joe Byrne’s best friend, Aaron Sherritt, to create a diversion by telling the police the gang were headed to Goulburn. The police fell for it and the gang were able to pass into the neighbouring colony unmolested while the police were distracted elsewhere.
On 7 February 1879 the Kelly Gang crossed the border into New South Wales. Splitting up, Dan and Steve going one way, Ned and Joe the other, they made their way into the Riverina. Ned and Joe stopped at the Woolpack Inn where they spoke and drank freely with Mary Jordan (aka Mary the Larrikin), a popular barmaid. The pair were able to glean some information about the township of Jerilderie, specifically about the police, and this helped to cement the game plan. What other shenanigans they got up to at the Woolpack Inn one can leave up to their imagination.
On the 8 February the gang moved into the township of Jerilderie. It was a town primarily concerned with agriculture and pastoral industry, flat and close to Billabong Creek. At midnight they approached the police station. Inside Senior Constable George Devine and Constable Henry Richards were just settling into bed. Mrs. Devine, who was pregnant at the time, had related to her husband that she had had a dream that the Kelly Gang were there but the annoyed husband dismissed it as rot. Suddenly there was a racket outside. “Devine, Richards, come out! There’s been a row at the hotel!”
Snr Const. Devine [Source: The Daily News, 20/05/1926, p.1]
When the police exited the building they were greeted with the Kelly Gang brandishing revolvers. The gang had split up to cover the front and rear and they closed in on the shocked officers. The troopers were taken prisoner then locked in the cell behind the station usually reserved for drunks and freshly arrested criminals. Mrs. Devine and her children were kept in the sitting room. Mrs. Devine was then sent to gather the firearms in the house. She begged Ned not to harm the men. Ned stated that if they didn’t misbehave then they would be unharmed. While Dan and Steve stabled the horses Mrs. Devine prepared a supper. When she moved to shift a bath full of water Ned refused to allow her to and did it himself, recognising that she was pregnant and in no condition for heavy lifting. In the early hours the gang took turns to rest and guard the others.
The following morning the gang set about putting the rest of the plan into action. The police ate breakfast with the bushrangers and then Ned and Dan dressed in police uniforms. Mrs. Devine expressed that she was scheduled to decorate the courthouse for mass and Ned, realising that her absence could arouse suspicion, allowed her to go, but she was accompanied there and guarded closely. Shortly after her return she accepted a delivery from the butcher, watched closely by Steve Hart and Ned Kelly.
Ned and Steve dressed in police uniforms to patrol the town, escorting Constable Richards and learning the lay of the land. Everyone assumed these new constables were reinforcements against the Kelly Gang. Mrs. Devine was guarded in the house with her husband by Dan and Joe.
A photolithograph of the town’s layout was procured and Ned and Joe plotted their exact movements for the following day. It was a remarkably domestic scene with Mrs. Devine bustling about doing chores while the outlaws made plans. Dan sat attentively and bounced one of the children merrily on his knee. Joe wrote a joke on the back of the photolithograph:
Q. Why are the Kellys the greatest matchmakers in the country?
A. Because they brought loads of ladies to Younghusbands (station), Euroa, Victoria.
As the night wound on Joe rode back to the Woolpack Inn and stayed there having a grand old time with Mary the Larrikin, until midnight when he was so sozzled Mary had to help him onto his horse. Meanwhile Ned had read a portion of the letter he and Joe had been writing to Mrs. Devine but it had all gone in one ear and out the other, her continued anxiety over the welfare of her family too dominant in her mind to pay attention.
Mrs. Devine [Source: The Daily News, 20/05/1926, p.1]
On Monday the 9th, the raid was put into action. The gang rode into town early and Dan and Joe, dressed as troopers, took their horses Rea’s blacksmith shop. They had the horses shod by blacksmith Andrew Nixon (all charged to the government account, naturally) and Joe left a loaf of bread. Next, Dan and Joe examined the telegraph wires that ran through town and noted them for later. Ned and Dan escorted Constable Richards through the streets with Joe and Steve riding behind on their horses. Ned and Dan ordered Richards to introduce them to Cox, the publican at the Royal Hotel. Ned informed Cox that his hotel was to be a prison for the day, but that if there was compliance there would be no bloodshed. Cox made the sensible choice to co-operate. Joe and Steve were placed in the front room, Dan on guard in the bar. As people entered the building they were bailed up.
Over the course of the day prisoners were rounded up and installed at the Royal Hotel where they were guarded by Dan Kelly, who remained in a police uniform. The gang had surmised that people are more likely to be compliant if you give them free booze. The hotel was connected to the bank by a walkway at the rear. It was not uncommon for drunks to go ambling in the back door of the bank, and with this in mind Joe began to pretend to be intoxicated as he wandered across the walkway into the bank. The bank staff were not alarmed by his intrusion but rethought their opinion when Byrne drew a pistol and stated “I’m a Kelly, bail up!”
Joe was soon joined by Ned and Steve. The till was emptied of just under £700 but Ned was not satisfied. “You must have at least £10,000!” he shouted. Edwin Living, the accountant, maintained that there was no more. Living was in his mid-twenties and spoke with a slight stammer. Just as Robert Scott had done at Euroa months earlier, Living was doing all he could to delay and misdirect the bushrangers. Not believing a word of it Ned located a locked treasure drawer. In order to open the treasure drawer the manager’s key was required. Joe suggested using a sledgehammer to get it open. Tarleton, the bank manager, had only just returned from a trip and was having a bath when Steve Hart burst in waving a revolver. The key was soon liberated. Steve was ordered to keep watch over the manager while he dressed and the cash was liberated, in all just over £2000. In the meantime, William Elliott the school teacher had wandered in and been bailed up by Joe Byrne. Ned told Elliot to return to the school and let the children go home as he was declaring a holiday in honour of the gang’s visit. Tarleton soon emerged freshly washed and dressed in a silk coat and smoking cap. The situation was one of great peril but no peril was too great to prevent him from indulging in selecting his finest haute couture for the occasion, it would seem.
The bank robbery as depicted in The Last Outlaw (1980)
Ned located a strongbox and while rummaging through it Ned came across the bank’s collection of mortgage papers, deeds and books. He decided that destroying the records of the bank’s debtors was a far more virtuous action than merely robbing the bank and announced his intention to burn the records. Edwin Living was permitted to rescue his life insurance policy. The documents were soon burned.
A trio of locals wandered into the bank at this time – the postmaster, his assistant and the newspaper editor – and caught the bushrangers in the act of robbing it. Two were seized but the third took off and kept running until he was out of town. It eventuated that this fleet-of-foot man was Gill, the newspaper editor, who Ned wanted to publish his letter. This letter was of huge significance to Ned. It was a 56 page document detailing much of his life, with emphasis on what he perceived to be injustices perpetrated against him and his family. It was his attempt to explain and justify his actions in killing three policemen and he wanted his message to be broadcast. With Gill missing the chance of Ned’s letter being published was effectively null. Edwin Living heard Ned’s grievance and offered to safe-keep the letter and forward it to Gill. Reluctantly Ned did so.
William Elliot in later life [Source: Weekly Times, 24/01/1931, p. 12]
Joe rode to the telegraph office dressed as a trooper and ordered the postmaster to dismantle the Morse key. He then examined the telegrams that had been sent that day to see if there was anything concerning.
With the bank robbed, everyone was herded into the pub. When Joe attempted to direct the hotel’s cook, a Chinese man, into the bar he was met with insolence and gave him a whack to make him compliant. With a captive audience, Ned gave a speech detailing his life, crimes and tribulations. At the conclusion of the speech drinks were had and the gang performed riding tricks in the street shouting “Hurrah, for the good old days of Morgan and Ben Hall!”
Ned set a group of townsfolk to work hacking down the telegraph poles with axes. He declared that if anyone touched the wires before the following day he’d return from robbing the Urana bank and shoot them all down like dogs. It was Ned’s typical hyperbolic, overly violent bluffing style and it worked. Many of the men continued chopping down the poles long after the gang were gone.
As they left town, Joe and Dan paired up and headed off while Ned and Steve headed to the Traveller’s Rest Hotel. There Steve Hart stole a saddle to replace his own with then bailed up Reverend Gribble and took his watch. Gribble went to Ned and expressed his distaste for Steve’s behaviour. Ned responded to the reverend’s quibble by berating Steve and forcing him to return the watch. Steve complied and Ned berated him, though it was unclear whether he was more annoyed at the act of petty theft or the fact that the watch was far less valuable that what Steve had already taken that day. Ned had another drink, conspicuously placing his revolver on the counter and announcing that anyone looking for the reward could come and grab it and shoot him if they had the guts. Ned left with another of his famous threats, this time stating that if anyone were to raise an alarm then Jerilderie would be awash in its own blood.
Once the outlaws were gone Reverend Gribble attempted to form a posse to hunt them. He was met with a mix of apathy and strong rejection. Living and Tarleton mounted up and rode to Deniliquin to raise the alarm. By the time news had filtered out it was too late to catch up with he outlaws. They had performed one of the most successful bank heists in Australian history.
In the wake of the raid Sir Henry Parkes, premier of New South Wales, committed to doubling the already hefty reward to £8000. This was the largest reward offered to date for anyone foul of the law, equating to around $2 million AUD. The guards on the banks created a massive hurdle to any future robbery plans for the gang and they disappeared for the remainder of the year. They would re-emerge in a spectacular way midway through the following year when executing a masterplan in Glenrowan. Gill never published the letter.
It’s hard to believe now, but there was a time when Stephen Hart was once one of the most infamous bushrangers in Australia. Now he is often thought of as no more than an also-ran, an afterthought, the “other Kelly”. According to an article in the Evening News, Sydney, 14 February 1879, “Ned Kelly is looked upon as a hero all over the North-eastern district, and Steve Hart is second only in popular esteem.” So what changed the public perception of one of only four people ever outlawed in the history of Victoria? What led to Steve Hart becoming the forgotten Kelly Gang member?
To understand the story of Steve Hart, we must look at his parents. Steve’s father Richard Hart was transported to Australia as an eighteen year old convict in 1835 on the Lady McNaughton for being a pick-pocket. Earning his ticket of leave on 26 January 1840, he would later gain his Certificate of Freedom on 18 June 1843. In the subsequent years he would be joined by his sister Anne and brother Richard, both were transported as convicts. Richard was employed at Gunning Station at Fish River working for Elizabeth O’Neill, the widow of John Kennedy Hume, brother of explorer Hamilton Hume, who had been murdered by bushranger Thomas Whitton on 20 January 1840. The widow Hume had been left with nine children to care for (she was pregnant with her ninth at the time of the murder) and nobody to protect them, so Richard’s presence was likely very welcome.
Ten years after Richard gained his ticket of leave, recently orphaned Bridget Young, aged sixteen, and her sister Mary, aged twenty-one, travelled to Australia from Galway on the Thomas Arbuthnot as part of the “Earl Grey Famine Orphan Scheme“. No doubt the potential opportunities in Australia were a glimmer of hope as they escaped the crushing existence of being employed at workhouses back in Ireland and trying to stave off starvation due to the Great Hunger, also known as the Great Famine or the Irish Potato Famine. They arrived in Sydney and were stationed at the Hyde Park Barracks for several weeks before travelling to Yass for work, Bridget then became indentured to Mr. Smith of Mingay Station in Gundagai, which was one of the various stations affected by the horrendous flood of June 1852.
One of the young women who had accompanied Bridget all the way to Yass since their initial departure from Galway on the Thomas Arbuthnot was Margret White, who would later move to Goulburn where she would marry Paddy Byrne. These two were the parents of Kelly gang member Joe Byrne. What interaction these women had, if any, remains an unanswered question.
When Elizabeth O’Neill left Gunning and took up residence at her property Burramine (aka Byramine) at Yarrawonga in the 1850s it is likely that Richard travelled with her. By this time, Richard had met Bridget Young and the pair were raising a family in Gundagai, but a short time thereafter the family arrived in South Wangaratta where they soon established themselves, possibly with more than a little assistance from Elizabeth.
Stephen Hart was born at the Hart property on Three Mile Creek, Wangaratta, on 4 October 1859 to Richard and Bridget Hart (née Young), and baptised on 13 October that year. Steve was one of thirteen children. His siblings were William (who died as an infant in Gundagai in 1852), Ellen, Julia, Richard jr (Dick), Thomas Myles, Esther (Ettie), Winifred, Agnes, Nicholas, Rachel and Harriet – certainly Richard snr and Bridget had their hands full with such a brood. Steve’s was not an overly troubled childhood by the standards of the time and place. In factthe Hart family seemed to be quite well to do with a 53 acre property in Wangaratta on the Three Mile Creek and a larger 230 acre block at the foot of the Warby Ranges. As with all selector’s sons, Steve was expected to work on the selection as soon as he was old enough but he had at least some education and could read and write.
Steve was an able, if not necessarily dedicated, worker. Employed for a time as a butcher boy in Oxley to a Mr. Gardiner, Steve soon ended up working with his father and siblings stumping properties for what would have been around £6 a month. Hardly glamorous work, but honest. No doubt he was frequently roped into doing jobs for the Bowderns who were neighbours to the Harts and close friends.
As a teenager, Steve was a jockey who had a few minor prizes under his belt including the Benalla Handicap. His small frame and natural affinity with horses made him the perfect fit and would come in handy later on when combined with his excellent geographical knowledge of Wangaratta and the Warby Ranges. He was evidently a popular youth, quite likely due to his fun loving nature and eagerness to please. It’s easy to imagine Steve strutting past O’Brien’s hotel with his hat cocked, chinstrap under his nose and a bright sash around his waist accompanied by the likes of Dan Kelly, Tom Lloyd, John Lloyd and, later on, Aaron Sherritt, Joe Byrne and Ned Kelly. His time with the Greta Mob, as they called themselves, was probably the only time Steve felt a sense of belonging, his adolescent mind far more preoccupied with socialising than work. It seems he built a strong bond with Dan Kelly in particular during this time, perhaps drawn in by the self-assuredness and natural charisma the younger Kelly seemed to possess. The Kelly boys were seemingly blessed with the ability to leave a favourable impression on most anyone they met while also projecting a ‘don’t mess with me’ vibe likely forged due to their harsh upbringing. In contrast, Steve’s slender build and delicate features likely made him someone who was far from intimidating, so being around someone like Dan would have been a good move to make him tougher by association. The Greta Mob were larrikins and what Steve lacked in physicality he made up for in horsemanship – a primary interest of the larrikin class. The gang were fond of showing off their skills on horseback and this kept them in the cross-hairs of the local police.
Steve Hart, photographed by W. E. Barnes
Of course, Steve was not exempt from the seemingly obligatory prison stint. On 7 July, 1877, Steve Hart appeared in Wangaratta Police Court during the general sessions charged with stealing a horse from David Green of Glenrowan. Green’s grey mare had gone missing and Sergeant Steele had been tasked with finding the culprit. Going to the Hart property in Wangaratta, Steele interrogated Steve and a lodger named James O’Brien about the horse in the paddock behind them. “What, that grey mare?” Steve asked incredulously. Steele pressed the point and Steve indicated he had been loaned the horse from a man in town. When Steele asked for a name, Steve replied “Have you a warrant for me? I’ll give you no bloody information unless you have.” Steele promptly arrested Hart and O’Brien, who had also gotten Dick Hart implicated in a horse theft at the same time. The initial charge of theft was altered to ‘illegally using a horse’ and Steve was shortly convicted and sent to Beechworth Gaol for twelve months. It was here that he befriended Dan Kelly who was doing time over an incident at a shop where he had gotten drunk and broken in. The freezing winter months and stifling summer heat would have taken their toll on the lad, then just eighteen. Undoubtedly this would have made him seem rather a black sheep in the family by the time he got home, so instead of staying at the farm he left to find work elsewhere, first supposedly shearing in New South Wales and later at a sawmill near Mansfield before he joined the Kelly brothers at their gold claim on Bullock Creek. It was honest enough work and no doubt his body had been bulked up from the hard labour smashing granite with a hammer in Beechworth Gaol for a year. The one known photograph of Steve depicts him as a slender youth, but descriptions of Steve in 1878 painted a different picture.
After Steve’s exit from Beechworth Gaol and all during his time travelling for work, Sergeant Steele had been hounding his family for word on his whereabouts. Steele was convinced he was off duffing stock with the Kellys and even threatened the Harts that if they didn’t tell him exactly where Steve was that he’d be shot. Unfortunately the family had no idea of Steve’s whereabouts.
When Constable Fitzpatrick was assaulted at the Kelly house in April 1878, Steve was not involved. However he was reported to have made the decision to stick by his mates and while working with his father and siblings he downed his tools and took off declaring:
“A short life, but a merry one!”
This phrase not only summed up the youthful impulsiveness of the adolescent Hart, but became a sort of catchphrase for the Kelly gang later on when the meaning had far more sinister undertones. Though, it was usually attributed to Steve, there is some question over the accuracy of the attribution, though it certainly sounds authentic enough to be believable and has become the phrase that is synonymous with him.
Steve was with Dan and Ned in October 1878 when a party of police had entered the Wombat Ranges hunting for the two Kellys. On 26 October Ned Kelly led Dan, Steve and Joe Byrne in an assault on the police party. Three police were killed in the incident, though Steve was not one of the killers. When McIntyre escaped on horseback Dan Kelly had directed Steve and Joe to catch him. They had gone a distance into the bush but could not catch up. They fired ineffectually into the bush. No doubt this episode was traumatic for all involved, but for Steve and Joe, who came from comparatively sheltered lives compared to the Kelly brothers, it must have been doubly so.
The immediate aftermath of Stringybark Creek saw the gang desperate to escape capture long enough to establish a new base of operations. This was where Steve Hart had his chance to shine. Navigating the torrential flood waters that caused the rivers to swell to insurmountable levels, Steve took the gang into his playground. Crossing a secluded bridge he took the gang and their horses safely to Hart territory, successfully evading the police search parties. Steve would prove invaluable to the gang in their next undertaking – the robbery of a bank.
An oft related anecdote is that Steve Hart, dressed as a veiled woman riding side-saddle, would ride into towns close to the Strathbogie and Warby Ranges to gather information about the banks. On one of these reconnaissance missions Steve found the perfect target in the township of Euroa. Disguises were not a necessity for Steve at this stage as he was the only member of the gang yet to be identified.
‘Steve Hart dressed as a girl’ by Sidney Nolan [Source]
Steve’s role in the bank robbery was straightforward but vital. When Ned and Dan set out from Faithful’s Creek, Steve rode ahead on his bay mare. Arriving in town in advance of the others, Steve got a bite to eat while he waited and used the time to assess whether the plan was still viable. When the others arrived he accompanied Dan around the back where he went into the bank manager’s residence and locked Susy Scott, her mother and children in the parlour, but not before being recognised by Fanny Shaw who was employed as a general maid for the Scotts. Steve and Fanny were schoolmates and Steve informed Fanny that he was in the process of robbing the bank before tricking her into joining the family in the parlour. Fanny Shaw’s testimony would finally expose the mysterious fourth member of the Kelly Gang. In the ashes of the fire from the gang’s old clothes was found what was believed to be a woman’s bonnet, but was after revealed to be Steve’s cabbage tree hat with a fly veil. While this would appear to indicate the cross-dressing rumours were no more than that it is very difficult to disprove the initial claim.
With the fourth member of the gang finally identified, a description was published in an effort to help the public recognise the miscreant:
He is described in the criminal records as being 21 years of age, 5ft. 6in. high, fresh complexion, brown hair, and hazel eyes ; right leg has been injured.
When the gang were officially declared outlaws it became much harder to move freely. Steve’s reconnaissance missions ended in favour of his sister Ettie feeding information back to the gang. When the raid on Jerilderie was decided upon the gang crossed into New South Wales in pairs, Ned and Joe heading for the pub where they received intelligence from Mary the Larrikin before meeting up with Dan and Steve the next day.
Steve’s role in the raids seems to have very much been as Ned’s attack dog. He was the only gang member to not don a police uniform after the Jerilderie police had been locked in their own cells. When the bank was robbed it was Steve who found the bank manager Tarleton having a bath (and subsequently made to guard him as he dressed). Witnesses in the hotel would describe Steve as seeming very nervous. While Ned was going about his work Steve stole a watch from Reverend Gribble. The outrage made it to Ned Kelly who ordered Steve to return the watch, which he did under sufferance. It must have seemed a strange paradox to be an outlawed bushranger but not be allowed to steal from people. Once again he and Dan performed horse tricks as they left the town after a victorious raid.
For months the gang seemingly disappeared. More detailed descriptions were offered that appeared to do very little to help identify the gang:
Steve Hart, about 21 years of age, 5 feet 4 inches high, dark complexion, black hair, short dark hair on sides of face and chin, bandy legs, stout build, clumsy appearance, speaks very slowly; dressed in dark paget suit, light felt hat, and elastic-side boots.
Watch parties were assigned to the Kelly, Hart and Byrne properties to stop them from returning home. During this time the banks were guarded by men of the garrison artillery, which made future plans for bank robbery impossible to carry out. But by the beginning of 1880 the gang were making appearances again, this time they were stealing metal to make suits of armour.
At Glenrowan, Steve initially attempted to pull up rails from the train track with Ned but soon became the attack dog again, keeping prisoners under control while Ned found the men who could lift the rails. Steve’s behaviour was typically aggressive, but as he was confined to guarding the women and children in the station-master’s house he became bored and took to drinking and even napped on the sofa with his revolvers resting on his chest. Depending on which account you read, at one point either Thomas Curnow helped Steve remove his boots and wash his feet in warm water to alleviate swelling or Steve ordered some of the women to wash his feet. He was also seen with his head on Jane Jones’ lap while he complained of feeling unwell. When Steve tired of being isolated he took the women and children to the inn to join the rest of the party.
When the police train was stopped and firing broke out, Steve seemed to avoid injury. However later on witnesses claimed he had injured his arm. Some witnesses described him cowering behind the fireplace to avoid gunfire, his initial overconfidence brought about by the armour supplanted by terror. After Joe Byrne’s death and Ned Kelly’s apparent disappearance Steve was despondent. When the prisoners were allowed to exit the inn he was overheard asking Dan Kelly “What shall we do now?” to which the reply was “I shall tell you directly.” Many have interpreted this to indicate a suicide pact. The truth about Steve’s cause of death will never be determined, however, as his corpse was burned beyond recognition in the fire that destroyed the inn. Stories of Steve and Dan surviving the fire are ludicrous and easily disproved.
Steve Hart, portrayed by Philip Barantini in Ned Kelly (2003)
After the fire, Steve’s body was retrieved and Superintendent Sadleir made the controversial decision to hand it over to the Hart family. A coffin was quickly procured and the remains placed inside and buried in a clandestine service in Greta Cemetery next to Dan Kelly in an unmarked grave. Steve’s untimely demise seemed to weigh heavily on the family but manifested in various ways. Ettie Hart appeared in a stage production entitled Kelly Family, whereas Dick preferred to stew over the turn of events and even agitated to form a second gang with Patsy Byrne, Wild Wright, Jim Kelly and Tom Lloyd. The agitation amounted to nothing however. In 1899, Tom Lloyd would marry Steve’s younger sister Rachel.
Over time Steve’s notoriety faded and soon he became “the other guy” in popular culture. Yet, Steve Hart is one of the more tragic characters in the Kelly saga, his youth and poor choices leading to a horrific and untimely death. There is perhaps no better example of the folly of youth than this accidental bushranger who just wanted to back up his mate and ended up one of the most wanted men in the British Empire.
A very special thank you to Noeleen Lloyd whose advice and additional information on the Hart family was invaluable in the compiling of this biography.
Selected sources:
LA citation”STEPHEN HART’S BOYHOOD.” Weekly Times (Melbourne, Vic. : 1869 – 1954) 10 July 1880: 6.
“More Facts About the Kelly Raid.” Evening News (Sydney, NSW : 1869 – 1931) 14 February 1879: 3.
“DESCRIPTION OF THE OUTLAWS.” Weekly Times (Melbourne, Vic. : 1869 – 1954) 14 December 1878: 16.
“THE KELLY GANG” The Kyneton Observer (Vic. : 1856 – 1900) 8 March 1879: 2.
“WHEN GUNDAGAI WAS A TRAGIC SIGHT” The Gundagai Independent (NSW : 1928 – 1939) 1 August 1935: 6.
[The following report was published in Cootamundra Herald, 3 July 1880. While some minor errors pepper it, this is one of the few times we get a somewhat choerent glimpse of Ned Kelly’s motivations at Glenrowan. ~ AP]
—
NED KELLYINTERVIEWED.
—
After the house had been burnt, Ned Kelly’s three sisters and Tom Wright were allowed an interview with him. Tom Wright, as well as his sisters, kissed the wounded man, and a brief conversation ensued, Ned Kelly having to a certain extent recovered from the exhaustion consequent of his wounds. At times his eyes were quite bright, although he was of course excessively weak, his remarkably powerful physique enabled him to talk rather freely. During the interview he stated: “I was at last surrounded by the police, and only had a revolver, with which I fired four shots; but it was no good. I had half a mind to shoot myself. I loaded my rifle, but could not hold it after I was wounded. I had plenty of ammunition, but it was of no use to me. I got shot in the arm, and told Byrne and Dan so. I could have got away, but when I saw them all pounding away I told Dan I would see it over and wait till morning.”
“What on earth induced you to go to the hotel?” inquired a spectator.
“We could not do it anywhere else,” replied Kelly, eyeing the spectators, who were strangers to him, suspiciously. “I would,” he continued, “have fought them in the train, or else upset it, if I had the chance. I did not care a — who was in it, but I knew on Sunday morning there would be no usual passengers. I first tackled the line and could not pull it up, and then came to Glenrowan station.”
Since the Jerilderie affair,” remarked a spectator, “we thought you had gone to Queensland.”
“It would not do for all to think alike,” was Kelly’s reply. “If I were once right again,” he continued,”I would go to the barracks and shoot every one of the — traps, and not give one a chance.”
Mrs. Skillian to her brother: “It’s a wonder you did not keep behind a tree.”
Ned Kelly: “I had a chance at several policemen during the night, but declined to fire. I got away into the bush and found my mare, and could have rushed away to beggary, but wanted to see the thing out, and remained in the bush.”
A sad scene ensued when Wild Wright led Mrs. Skillian to the horrible object which was all that remained of her brother Dan. She bent over it, raised a dirge-like cry, and wept bitterly. Dick Hart applied for the body of his brother, but was told he could not have it until after the post mortem examination.
The inquest on the bodies will be held at Benalla.
The wound received by Sergeant Hare pierced right through the wrist. It bled profusely, and he had to be removed for medical treatment.
The son of Mrs. Jones, landlady of the Glenrowan Hotel, was shot in the back, but not killed.
Ned Kelly was shot in the left foot, the left leg, the right hand, and left arm, and twice in the region of the groin; but no bullet pierced his armour.
Being a young man with large hands and strong arms you’d think I was perfect for brick laying but alas it was not for me. I tried to help Ned out on a job but the job just wasn’t suited to me. I tried my best to carry the blocks and mix the mortar and to be honest they were overworking me as I was the new fellow. I tried my best but couldn’t keep up, they said I wasn’t fast enough then when I went faster they said I wasn’t careful enough. The other bricklayers had a good old chuckle at my expense and once the job was done and everyone went to the pub to celebrate “Henry the German”, the foreman, bought beers for everyone but me, said I could drink like a man when I could work like a man. I’d have smacked him in his kraut mouth if I’d not have incurred the wrath of the others.
Three weeks I was there helping out and I got a decent pay out of it so I went and got myself new boots. They were good boots and they were the first I remember wearing that hadn’t had Ned’s and Jim’s sweaty feet rotting them to pieces before they reached me. The others at work thought I was a tramp because my shoes were held together with twine. I didn’t care, I had known nothing else. There was one bloke at the job who was called Bluey and he thought my rags was a great joke. If ever I took off my jacket he’d hide it so that the next day I had to come to work in the cold with nothing on but my undershirt and an old crimean shirt of Ned’s that were full of holes. Bluey was a real bastard, would call me the brat and once threw an old dog blanket at me and told me it was better than my coat and more than I deserved. But with my new boots on I felt a million pounds and was strutting about the place like I owned it. Of course the rest of me was a shambles but my feet never looked smarter. They were elastic sided boots, black leather with a tall heel and they fit into my stirrups right splendid. No socks of course – useless bits of cloth in my opinion but the calluses on my feet might have said otherwise.
Where was my big brother Ned through all of this? The one who was told by Ma to keep an eye on me and make sure I don’t come into no mischief or get taken advantage of? He got as far away from me as he could. Arm’s length were too close. Here was Ned with his fine clothes with no holes, that fit him like a glove, bought with his felling money (none of that ever reached Ma I might add as he were of the opinion George King would take it and lose it on the cards as he were a lousy gambler) his beard all neat, laying stones like a machine because of all the time he’d done on Success, and here was I his kid brother in the moth eaten wool suit with floppy hair, a fluffy moustache and boots held together with twine trying to carry his own weight in stone to stop the other men from laughing at him. As soon as the job was done I didn’t speak to Ned for a month. I went shearing with Steve and just got away from that whole scene. It were at that time that George in his infinite Yankee wisdom took up thieving with Ned. Ned were so proud of how his skills breaking horses and the tricks for rebranding Power had taught him made him a master thief. He and George daren’t breathe a word to Ma or she’d have cut their bollocks off right there and then. I tried to keep my nose clean but in the off season when there weren’t no sheep to shear and there was only so many logs to split to get an income, one falls into bad habits.
I only helped them on one raid and all I done was to help muster the animals once they was out of the farm and lead them into the ranges, I never stole any. I can rest easy knowing my conscience is at least that clear. Ned were a clever duffer but Jim were thick as two planks and got caught every time. He were a habitual liar our Jim, heart of gold but mouth full of lies. Ma would tell him “your forked tongue will get you into strife someday Jim Kelly” and it was too true. He was in Darlinghurst Gaol after getting caught red handed through a lot of that time. When he helped me on the claim he were a good worker but he were itchy footed. He thought the work boring and hated being surrounded by men so he left us to go and chase girls. He said their sweet scent were summoning him, I told him the only summons he was like to get is one to court if he didn’t behave. I guess I were right on that.
But those boots though. I loved those boots. Over time I pieced together a whole outfit – a whole outfit that were my own and there was no holes or frayed edges or mysterious stains on the trousers. I should point out that my main trousers were an old pair of Jim’s with the knees worn out and a big dark stain over the privates where the clod had spilled grease from his frying pan after a cooking mishap. You can imagine the comments I got about “the brat’s wet himself again” when I was on the site. I can’t ever say that those were happy days. I suppose being a Kelly you’re not allowed to have many happy days. Seems to be our lot in life.
We continue our two part feature on the mysterious deaths of Dan Kelly and Steve Hart with an overview of the folklore and conspiracy theories about the pair surviving the fire as well as a summary of the evidence that disproves these popular legends. You can read part one here. The subject matter is not for the squeamish and will feature sensitive material as well as imagery some might find upsetting, but this is all in the pursuit of understanding what really happened at Glenrowan and bringing closure to this enduring speculation.
The Conspiracy Theories
Many people have peddled the barely credible stories of Dan and Steve surviving Glenrowan. Most of these people were old swaggies who traded their stories for food and shelter. The basic tropes of the stories are as follows:
1. The boys hid (usually in a cellar) where they avoided being burned.
2. The bodies from the fire were swaggies or some other strangers to the area. Random unidentified casualties in the fire appear in various incarnations of the story.
3. The survivors headed to Queensland and beyond (usually South Africa) but never returned to their families.
4. The claimant insists on the legitimacy of the claims despite deviation from recorded facts.
Here we will look at some of the more notable stories that have done the rounds over the past century.
The South Africa Legends
The earliest legend of the boys escaping stated that they subsequently fought in the Boer War in South Africa. Travelling under assumed names they fought in the war and upon the war ending returned to Australia. Variations of the story are plentiful. In one account the pair used Ned Kelly’s last stand as a diversion for their escape from the fire. They then took a coach to Melbourne, stowed away to India, joined the Imperial Indian Army and were engaged in service in South Africa. Later Dan returned to Australia where he was questioned by police, whereas Steve had drowned in Calcutta harbour around 1917. This version asserts the bodies found in the inn were tramps.
Another variation states that the pair escaped the inn dressed as troopers using uniforms they carried around to use as disguises. They fired back at the inn and avoided detection because no police knew what they looked like. In this version an old shepherd puts them up then they head to Sydney where they take a ship to Argentina, then later fought as soldiers in South Africa before returning to Australia. The Dan Kelly in this rendition was later seen arguing, drunk, in the street alluding to it all being a ruse.
It is claimed by one alleged witness, Ralph Merton, that they worked in a Kimberley hotel where he recognised them and called them out. They subsequently admitted their identities and produced an article about Ned Kelly’s execution as proof. This claimant asserted than Steve Hart was a master pugilist and could hold his own with the best of them. He stated that the pair escaped from Newcastle in a cattle boat headed for South Africa where they were determined to live out the rest of their days but eventually Dan died in South Africa and Steve Hart in California.
Ambrose Pratt even compiled the “memoirs” of one of these impostor Dans in a book simply titled Dan Kelly Outlaw in which Dan survives Glenrowan and sails to America. As can be expected it is riddled with inaccuracies and clear fabrications. These are just some of the variations on the tale reiterated by tramps and swaggies at the turn of the last century. It was estimated that there was no less than a dozen people claiming to be Dan Kelly doing the rounds that time, but none would gather as much attention as the enterprising “Dan” who took his story straight to the press.
“I am Dan Kelly”
Dan Kelly and his dog at Toombul, ca. 1930s, John Oxley Library, State Library of Queensland Neg: 1196305 [Source]
The most infamous Dan Kelly impostor was James Ryan, a swaggie from Queensland who used his dubious credentials to gain popularity in rural communities. Before his unfortunate demise on the receiving end of a coal train, he approached the press in Queensland where his story was covered by The Truth in the 1930s and widely accepted as fact by a public not terribly aware of the facts of the story, eager for any kind of juicy controversy that could distract from the harsh existence they eked out during the Great Depression.
Ryan would boldly claim:
“I rode with Ned. For 53 years I have been a fugitive, with murder on my head. I am here now to prove that I didn’t die in the fire at Glenrowan, and to tell the whole truth before it is too late.”
A hell of a claim to live up to! Of course, it all starts to fall apart when he is pressed on the details. In the narrative, as dictated to The Truth, we are told:
“Ned Kelly had just come out of Berrima Gaol in 1877 after serving a sentence for horse stealing when he was told by Kate [Kelly] of Fitzpatrick’s wooing. As it is related, it is one of the most dramatic episodes in the entire story of robbery and bloodshed. Kate told Ned she had ‘a boy,’ and when Ned learned who it was, and showed anger, Kate dropped Fitzpatrick ‘like a hot spud.'”
Not a word of this is the truth and likely did the rounds of the pubs in northern New South Wales and southern Queensland. The Truth make the wise move of pointing out Ryan’s inaccuracies:
“Where his details collide with fact the subject is usually one with which he has become acquainted through hearsay and report; for example, the reward which was placed on the heads of the gang after the sticking up of the Jerilderie bank in February, 1879. His version is that £1000 a head was posted, when actually the offer was £2000.”
James Ryan was no ordinary teller of tall tales. When confronted with the obvious falsehoods he was peddling he simply stated that the “truth” was lies perpetuated to try and defame he and his associates, such as this choice quote regarding the armour being made by a Benalla blackmith named “Jack Quin”:
“He made the armor in the bush outside the town, and he made it of best sheet steel, about three-sixteenths of an inch thick. It is nonsense for people to say the armor was made out of old mouldboards and casl-off pieces of metal. It may be true, as it’s said, that the name of Lemmone, the plough-maker, was found on Ned’s armor after his capture, but you can take it from me that the steel used was new stuff, strong and true.”
But, of course, the most important part of his story has to be the account of how he escaped the fire.
“The other three had their armor on under their coats. My first recollection of trouble was an alarm. We saw suddenly that the place was on fire. The others who were with us rushed to the doors— and found that they were locked. The police had locked them and set fire to the shanty. Somehow, I suppose,they intended to let the others out, but they wanted us badly. Through the thick smoke that was filling the bar I saw Ned jump for a small window, carrying his rifle. Us three were nearly suffocated. Hart and Byrne were encumbered with their armor, which was their undoing. They couldn’t get out and were burnt alive. It all happened in a flash. As Ned got through the window I heard a crackle, of shots, and realised that the place was covered by many rifles. I had already been scorched by the flames, and I ran into a room off the bar, where the smoke seemed less dense. It turned out to be a bedroom. A baby was lying on the bed, screaming with fright and pain. Somebody had left it there in the confusion. Flames were filling the room, and I thought the end had come. The wall of the room suddenly began to bulge, and I saw a chance. One of the boards — It was only a single board place — began to go, and I pushed it outwards with the strength of a madman. You get pretty excited when you look to have a good chance of being burnt alive. Already I was being caught by the flames, and there was no hope at all for the kid. The fire must have burnt around the board where it was secured to the post for it suddenly gave way as I pushed. I stuck my head out for air. I thought I might be able to push other boards out and get through. I found instead that my head was caught, and that I couldn’t move it. The fire gave me some hurry-up for the short time I was stuck there helpless. I writhed in agony as my legs and back and sides came within the range of the flames. Luckily for me, the police were in the front of the place; otherwise I’d have been potted off like a sick dog. I struggled and pushed for all I was worth, and when I was just about ready to give up another board gave way. That will give you an idea of how hot it was in the room! I got into the open. Pains were shooting through me like the fires of hell. I had no chance of walking. But I could crawl. I crawled slowly down into a bit of a washout beyond the hotel. Every moment was torture such as I never knew could be possible. I still had ideas of helping Ned. I could see him in the moonlight about 50 yards away from where I lay behind a clump of scrub. He was standing behind a big bloodwood log. I still wanted to help him, but I had no gun. Ned called out to me to surrender. He could see me, but the police couldn’t. They were firing at him, and he was replying towards their rifle flashes. I couldn’t help him so I shut my mouth. If I had started calling back to him I’d have taken his attention off what he was doing. They were firing at him at intervals. They started about midnight and kept it up until dawn. He was still wearing his armor, and now and then, when a bullet hit him on a protected part, he’d thump his chest and call them skunks, and cowards. By dawn there must have been a hundred weight of police lead at his feet — bullets that had flattened on his steel coat. I saw them break Ned’s wrist with a bullet. The revolver dropped out of his hand. I heard him call them again a lot of curs, and then I heard no more I suppose I lost my senses. It was still day when I came to, and the place was quiet. Nobody came to look for me. The ruins of the pub were still hot. I laid there in the scrub groaning with agony. The pain was almost unbearable. I was there for five days without water or food. It was a hard time. I was burned on the legs, the hips and the back. Of my clothes, all had been burnt off except the collar of my shirt and the waist band of my trousers. They say Dan Kelly never escaped from the fire! During those five days there were times when I wished I hadn’t. On the fifth day an old cocky came in sight, and I called out to him. I hardly recognised my own voice, and it was so weak that I was surprised that he heard me croak. He came to me. I told him who I was. He turned out to be a German, Schultz by name. He tended me and put me into his cart. He was a fine old fellow. Knowing that he would never ‘crack a lay’, I took him right into my confidence. He got me back to Victoria and left me at a farmhouse just outside Benalla. I don’t remember the name of the farmer. If I did, I wouldn’t disclose it, because they did me the biggest turn any man could have asked for, and they may have descendants living around there now.”
How anyone even vaguely familiar with the truth could consider there to be any shred of credibility in this ludicrous tale is beyond comprehension. There is not the slightest chance that this man was who he said he was and a companion piece published by The Truth that attacks the arguments against the assertion that this elderly huckster was Dan Kelly makes for infuriating reading. The utter absurdity of this circus of lies leaves one feeling that even a short summary as this gives the delusion more air than it ever deserved, though there are still some out there who believe it to be true so it warrants inclusion.
The Facts
In order to adequately address the notion of a miraculous escape from the fire we must examine the likelihood of survival in a fire of such a magnitude by hiding in a cellar. The following images of the body of one of the outlaws, likely Dan Kelly, illustrates the gruesome sight that confronted the family and spectators:
As can be clearly seen, the extremities had burned off, the bones had fragmented and there were no identifying marks as a result. While this inability to identify the remains after the fire was seemingly enough to fuel the rumours, it actually demonstrates the number key reasons why such an escape would be impossible. In the event that a cellar did exist, and the boys hid inside it during the fire, the fire would have been too hot to allow survival. The Black Saturday fires demonstrated that hiding in a cellar or underground shelter may seem like a sound idea, and in a few cases it worked, but the deaths from smoke inhalation, suffocating and overheating prove that burning is not the only way an inferno can kill you. The fire in the inn was so hot it liquefied glass bottles putting the temperature of the fire around 1400 – 1600° Celsius (2522 – 2912° Fahrenheit, or 1673.15 – 1873.15° Kelvin). For days after the fire the ruins were still seen smouldering. Two people hiding in a cellar under the inn would have likely suffocated as the fire sucked all the air out to feed itself if the radiant heat hadn’t already killed them through hyperthermia, that is extreme overheating, which starts to become fatal when the body temperature exceeds 40° Celsius (104° Fahrenheit, 313.15° Kelvin) meaning that the fire in the Glenrowan Inn would have been more than 30x hotter than the temperature needed to cause death. However, if by a miracle the cellar was deep enough and provided enough shelter to protect from the radian heat, they would have suffered severe burns attempting to exit the ruins that consisted of molten glass, hot metal and embers, which were observed almost constantly over the next few days by rubberneckers and souvenir hunters.
The state of the bodies after the fire demonstrates that they had been partially cremated. The descriptions of the flesh bubbling and sizzling, and the fists clenching, and limbs contracting are perfectly in line with the effect of the first ten minutes of cremation in a modern crematorium. Temperatures in modern cremation chambers reach around 1000° Celsius (1832° Fahrenheit, 1273.15° Kelvin). The final product that we see in the photographs of the corpse on a sheet of bark are alike a cremated body would be at fifty minutes into the process (which would usually take a little over an hour) indicating that the back room at least was slightly cooler than the bar room would have been.
This photograph by Madeley demonstrates the huge cloud of smoke from the inn, which was burning hotter than a cremation chamber.
But let’s put aside the science for a moment and consider that maybe there was a cellar that they hid in, is it not bizarre that at a site surrounded by dozens of police and locals as well as the scores of onlookers that had come to gawp and fossick over the course of the siege and following days, that not a single person a) noticed a cellar and b) saw anyone emerge from the wreckage.
Beyond the grisly nature of the deaths, there is the inescapable tragedy of two young lives wasted, their potential snuffed out before it could ascend and two families with nothing to mourn over but the semi-cremated remains. Steve Hart in his youthful ignorance pursued adventure but ended up in Hell. Dan Kelly, ever the subordinate to his impulsive brother, seems to have been led away from a life that could have seen him step away from the difficulties of life as a Kelly and make something of himself, but as instead doomed to barely reach his majority.
Conclusion:
The core of this examination is to put an end to the rumours of an impossible escape from the Glenrowan Inn so that the memory of these young men, little more than boys, can be respected, despite their criminality, and the truth be seen for the tragic waste of life it was. Moreover, it is to impart the importance of examining stories with a critical eye or else risk being taken advantage of and made to be a fool. To perpetuate the idea of an escape is to peddle poppycock that has no value beyond the believer’s own satisfaction that the police didn’t win against the gang, which is obviously what the death or capture of the outlaws would have meant. The notion that two of the gang escaped is no more than an extended middle finger to the authorities. The issue was famously raised to Ellen Kelly in an interview and her reaction is telling:
“Don’t I know that he’s dead? Haven’t I proof of it all these weary years? Do you think I don’t know? I tell you Dan’s dead and gone, many years ago. […] Dan is dead. No one knows it better than I do. Yes; I have the proof. Look! If Dan Kelly was alive all these years, wouldn’t he have come to me? Would he let me want and go hungry, as I have done? Would he have seen me ending my life in this misery and done nothing to help me? Wouldn’t he have told Jim?”
To those family members still alive while the rumours were gaining traction it was a big slap in the face. Not only had they had to endure the loss of loved ones, but now they had strangers claiming that they were not dead or, even more tastelessly, claiming to be them. Regardless of your stance on their criminality, it would be cruel and inhumane to posit that they and their families were not entitled to be treated with some basic humanity. While Superintendent Sadleir was reprimanded for turning the bodies over to the family at the conclusion of the siege, it was this single act of humanity that stopped further escalation at Glenrowan. Tensions were high that day and a refusal to allow the bodies to be claimed for burial could have tipped the scales. If the man who was leading, at least in part, the hunt for these young men who were wanted dead or alive can understand the power of such an act of goodwill, despite what they were known to have done, surely it is acceptable for us as outsiders to respect the families as well, without condoning acts of criminality.
The secret burials in unmarked graves, construed by some as proof of a cover up, was a practicality. These families wanted closure, privacy and to protect the bodies from further indignity. It must be remembered that Dr. Hutchinson had procured a foot from the inn, supposedly Dan Kelly’s, and kept it in a private collection in South Africa (along with a lock of Ned Kelly’s hair). If a respected medical man could not be expected not to stoop to such ghoulish behaviour, what hope was there that the general public would respect the family’s desire to mourn in peace?
The coffins containing the remains of Dan Kelly and Steve Hart sit in the back of the undertaker’s cart in front of McDonnell’s Tavern, Glenrowan.
In the end, the perpetuation of the survival stories is symptomatic of a bigger issue – the triumph of fiction over fact. When a romantic idea takes a grip on the imagination, reality is often the first casualty. A story such as those proposing the survival of Dan and Steve only gain traction through ignorance. By examining the facts and laying the falsehoods to rest we can observe the story for what it really was, a horrific tragedy, rather than merely an exciting yarn to tell your drinking buddies at the pub. If we allow ourselves to be swayed by fiction on matters of history, how well does that bode for our critical thinking about current events? Conspiracy theories peddled by people such as 9/11 and Sandy Hook “truthers” have the ability to cause more harm than good. Incinerating the legend of Dan Kelly’s and Steve Hart’s survival is a step in the right direction – towards the truth.
Selected Sources:
“When the KELLY GANG RODE OUT” Truth. 13 August 1933: 1.
“Kelly gang’s Last Stand at Glenrowan” Truth. 27 August 1933: 13.
“RECOGNISED DAN KELLY IN SOUTH AFRICA” The Herald (Melbourne, Vic. : 1861 – 1954) 5 December 1930: 7.
“Dan Kelly and Steve Hart in South Africa.” Queanbeyan Age (NSW : 1867 – 1904) 23 July 1902: 2.
“DAN” KELLY. (1919, February 14). Canowindra Star and Eugowra News (NSW : 1903 – 1907; 1910 – 1911; 1914 – 1922), p. 4.
“THE KELLY GANG” The Charleville Times (Brisbane, Qld. : 1896 – 1954)1 October 1948: 6.
“DAN KELLY SOLVES THE MYSTERY.” The Corowa Free Press (NSW : 1875 – 1954) 19 September 1902: 3.
“THE KELLY GANG FROM WITHIN” The Sun (Sydney) 27 August 1911: 9
Subject of much speculation is the nature of the death of Dan Kelly and Steve Hart at Glenrowan. Conspiracy theories aside, it’s incredibly difficult to piece together what happened due to the lack of witnesses and the fire that decimated the inn destroying all evidence. Still, there are clues to perhaps piece together what may have happened. In the following two part feature, part one will look at the known events surrounding the deaths and discuss three key theories as to how the boys died, while part two will provide an overview of the folklore and conspiracy theories about the pair surviving the fire as well as an overview of the evidence that disproves these popular legends. The subject matter is not for the squeamish and will feature sensitive material as well as imagery some might find upsetting, but this is all in the pursuit of understanding what really happened at Glenrowan and bringing closure to this enduring mystery.
As It Was Reported
“When the house was seen to be fully on fire, Father Gibney, who had previously started for it but had been stopped by the police, walked up to the front door and entered it. By this time the patience of the besiegers was exhausted, and they all, regardless of shelter, rushed to the building. Father Gibney, at much personal risk from the flames, hurried into the room to the left, and there saw two bodies lying side by side on their backs. He touched them, and found life was extinct in each. These were the bodies of DanKelly and Hart. The other gentleman expressed the opinion, based on their position, that they must have killed one another. Whether they killed one another, or whether, both or one committed suicide, or whether both being mortally wounded by the besiegers, they determined to die side by side, will never be known. The priest had barely time to feel their bodies before the fire forced him to make a speedy exit from the room. The flames had then made such rapid progress on the western side of the house that the few people who followed close on the rev. gentleman’s heels dare not attempt to rescue the two bodies. It may be here stated that after the house had been burned down their two bodies were removed from the embers. They presented a horrid spectacle, nothing but the trunk and skull being left, and these almost burnt to a cinder. Their armour was found near them about the remains. There was apparently nothing to lead to positive identification, but the discovery of the armour near them and other circumstances rendered it impossible to be doubted that they were those of DanKelly and SteveHart. The latter was a much smaller man than the younger Kelly, and their difference in size was noticeable in their remains.”
– “ROUT OF THE KELLY GANG: GENERAL NARRATIVE.”
South Australian Register. 29 June 1880: 6.
“THE FIRE SPREAD RAPIDLY.
Still no sign of life appeared in the building, and when the house was seen to be fairly on fire Father Gibbey, who had previously started for it, but had been stopped by the police, walked up to the front door and entered it. By this time the patience of the besiegers was exhausted, and they, all regardless of shelter, rushed to the building. Father Gibbey, at much personal risk from the flames, hurried into a room at the left, and there saw two bodies lying side by side on their backs. He touched them, and found life was extinct in each. There were the bodies of Dan Kelly and Hart ; and the reverend gentleman expressed the opinion, based on their position, that
THEY MUST HAVE KILLED ONE ANOTHER.
Whether they killed one another, or whether both or one committed suicide, or whether both, being mortally wounded by the besiegers, determined to die side by side, will never be known. The priest had barely time to feel their bodies before the fire forced him to make a speedy exit from the room, and the flames had then made such rapid progress on the western side of the house that the few people who followed close to the rev. gentleman’s heels dared not attempt to rescue tho two bodies. It may be stated that after the house had been burned down these two bodies were removed from the embers. They presented
A HORRIBLE SPECTACLE,
Nothing but the trunk and skull being left, and those almost burnt to a cinder. Their armour was found near them. About the remains there was apparently nothing to lead to positive identification, but the discovery of the armour near them, and other circumstances, render it impossible to be doubted that they were those of Dan Kelly and Steve Hart. The latter was a much smaller man than the younger Kelly, and this difference in size was noticeable in the remains.”
“[Father Gibney] then came to the back room where he saw two bodies lying stretched at full length on their backs, with bags formed into pillows under their heads. He took hold of each of them and satisfied himself that they were dead. The ceiling and sidewalls were at this time alight. Father Gibney was bewildered when he saw the two beardless youths who kept at bay for so many hours, a large number of armed men. The heroic priest passed out by the back door and when he was seen to be safe by the anxious crowd, they cheered long and loudly. From the position Hart and Dan Kelly were lying in, it is clear that they were not shot by the police.”
– “THE GLENROWAN TRAGEDY.” Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate.
17 July 1880: 8.
Dan Kelly’s and Steve Hart’s armour bearing scorch marks from the fire that destroyed the Glenrowan Inn, with Ned Kelly’s shoulder plate, skull cap and carbine.
The Final Hours
We pick up the story on the morning of Monday, June 28 1880. The Kelly Gang have been besieged by police in the Glenrowan Inn since 2:00am. Around 5:00am Joe Byrne was shot dead in the bar room by a police bullet. Dave Mortimer would recall:
“…shortly after 5 o’clock in the morning Byrne was shot. He had just walked into the bar and was drinking a glass of whiskey when a ball struck him in the groin. I heard him fall, and saw the blood spurting from him. I think he died very soon. This seemed to dishearten Dan Kelly and Hart. They had been calling for Ned all night, and they renewed their calls for him. […] Dan and Hart went into the inside room, and I heard one say to the other, ‘What will we do?’ I did not hear the reply; but Reardon said he thought they intended to commit suicide.”
At around 7:15am Ned Kelly was captured 100m away from the inn and taken into custody. A considerable number of the gang’s prisoners remain trapped in the inn by almost unending and indiscriminate police fire, despite numerous attempts to evacuate them. Since Joe’s death Dan Kelly and Steve Hart have been despondent, Ned’s capture has entrenched this feeling of hopelessness.
Now, at 2:00pm the prisoners are released. They are forced to lay belly-down in the grass where they are searched by police. Some of the prisoners are identified as Kelly sympathisers and arrested.
At 2:30pm, from the north window of the hotel near the chimney a shot rings out. Constable Dwyer and Constable Arthur unload their guns in the direction of the shot. They are close enough to hear a sound from inside – a heavy thud and the rattle of armour. “There is one of them inside shot,” Dwyer would boast.
At 3:00pm Dwyer and Constable Dixon hear another thud in the same room and presume the other is shot.
At 4:00pm Johnston sets fire to the inn under a cover of heavy fire. Upon the fire being lit, it spreads very quickly inside. Father Gibney, who had been agitating for some time to gain access to the premises in an effort to encourage Dan and Steve to surrender, rushes the inn and enters the bar room with his hands above his head and his crucifix held aloft, calling out to anyone who may hear.
“In the name of God, men, will you let me hear your confession?”
The canvas lining of the ceiling is aflame and Gibney finds Joe Byrne’s corpse on the floor in a pool of blood, he is quite dead. He rushes into the bedroom and sees Dan Kelly and Steve Hart laying next to a greyhound with their heads on what appears to be bunched bags. They are dead as well. He does not recognise them as he is not acquainted with the gang’s appearances, though he would describe them as “beardless youths”.
“Come up, men, these men are all dead,” Gibney hollers to the police who have rushed in after him.
A floorplan of the Glenrowan Inn demonstrating where the bodies were found.
Constables find Joe Byrne’s body being licked by the flames. The corpse is dragged outside before it can be consumed in the fire. Constable James Dwyer then moves through the building to the bedrooms. Dwyer would later recall during the Royal Commission:
“The four of us ran up, and Constable Armstrong and I took Joe Byrne, who was at the far end in the passage. I took Joe Byrne by the shoulders, and Armstrong by the feet, and lifted him out. At the door Mr. Sadleir, Mr. O’Connor, and others met us, and the priest, in the crowd, said, “Go back, constables, the other two men are on the beds.” We dropped Byrne and went back to the passage. The blaze of fire was coming and we put up our hands. Steve Hart had his feet up on the bed. He was burning down to here—[pointing to his waist]—and his feet were on the bed, and his hands in that position—[indicating the same]—; and his face all burnt and his blood was passing and frizzling like a steak in a pan. Looking again to the left of us, the north end near the chimney, Dan Kelly was lying in this position—[indicating the same]. The left knee was crippled and his hand outstretched. His helmet was off; he had the armour on—the breast-plate; and on his neck and thighs and hand there was blood. I knew him to be Dan Kelly from the low forehead, and the description of them, and that the other must be Steve Hart. […] I knew the man I saw in that position, with the black hair and sallow complexion, was Dan Kelly. […] [They were] about six yards [from each other], the length of the dwelling house, one at one end and the other at the other end. Dan Kelly was at the chimney side, with his feet on the bed, opposite the window. […] The blood I saw along the arms and neck and thighs led me to believe they were shot by the police, and that the heavy thuds we heard was their being shot. Armstrong said, “Come out,” and I said “Yes, we will have to leave them to their fate,” and we had only just left the place where we were standing when the ceiling fell down.”
Theory One: Suicide Pact (death by bullet)
The most popular theory is that when faced with capture by police the boys shot each other to avoid capture. This was an idea that quickly gained traction around the turn of the century and immortalised in the majority of films about the gang. It is certainly a plausible theory insofar as the behaviour of the boys after the death of Joe and the capture of Ned indicated a sense of hopelessness and despondency that may have interacted with a defiance to allow the forces of law and order to do with them as they wished. Some have even gone so far as to suggest a suicide pact was in place so that should they find themselves in a situation without hope of escape from the police they would die before being captured. This romantic idea is certainly not without precedent in bushranging history, with Mickey Burke of the Hall gang doing just this after being mortally wounded in a gun battle. He shot himself in the head multiple times without effect before slowly dying of his wounds. It was a popular idea that the boys would have grown up with when bushranger stories were told to them, but what evidence is there to support the idea?
Alas, there is nothing concrete to base the idea of a suicide pact upon so we must go back to the initial assertion that it was an act of desperation. It must be noted that the descriptions of the bodies make no mention of head wounds or body wounds that would correlate with a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Moreover, no firearms were seen within reach of the bodies, which would indicate that they did not shoot themselves or each other.
This illustration by Thomas Carrington depicts the bodies of Dan Kelly and Steve Hart in the burning inn, based on Carrington’s eyewitness perspective.
Another key problem with this theory is the positioning of the bodies. When Father Gibney located the bodies he described them as looking serene, their heads resting on sacking or bags that had been made into makeshift pillows. The bodies were also witnessed by Constable Dwyer and Constable Armstrong as well as sketched by Thomas Carrington as the room they were in was consumed by flames. None of the descriptions or the illustration indicate death by shooting each other or themselves based on the position of the bodies or the paraphernalia surrounding them in the burning room.
Theory Two: Suicide Pact (death by poison)
The position of the bodies and the makeshift pillows implies a slow death that was somewhat prepared for. This would make sense in the event of voluntary poisoning. It is known that Joe Byrne carried poison on his person as a brown paper packet of poison was found in his jacket pocket. In probability this was laudanum, which was a pain killer made from opium and morphine that had been declared poisonous in the 1860s after overdoses became common. Joe likely used laudanum to replace the opium he smoked. Laudanum was highly addictive and as a strong opiate probably brought about a better high than opium smoke would. It was relatively cheap and easy to procure as well, so it’s little wonder that they would have had this in their possession. The “paper packet” is unusual though as laudanum was usually sold in bottles as a tincture, though it was also probably sold in packets unmixed.
Another potential poison would be carbolic acid, which was used as a disinfectant and when watered down was applied to mouth ulcers. This was common in many households and no doubt a woman with many health problems (and boisterous young boys) as Ann Jones did would have some on standby. The effect of ingesting carbolic acid is horrendous, burning the throat and causing the victim to vomit blood and fall into a coma. If either of the boys had been inclined to poison themselves, no doubt this was the most effective way and reasonably easy to find.
The evidence supporting this theory is strong but does not account for the descriptions of the bodies heard hitting the floor after police fired into the inn, nor does it account for the blood on Dan’s neck as described by Dwyer who, apart from Father Gibney, was the closest person to the bodies before the fire took hold.
Theory Three: Two Deaths
The “Two Deaths” theory is essentially that Dan and Steve died separately from each other rather than a murder-suicide or a suicide pact. In this theory Dan Kelly is felled by a police bullet and Steve Hart is left to find his own way out of his situation. This theory is one that has not been presented with due consideration to date, yet based on the descriptions of the events and the bodies is perhaps the most likely.
Police reported that the last shot was fired from a window in the back room of the inn at 1.00pm and was shortly followed by a burst of police fire and a heavy thud from inside the back room. The sound was described as being accompanied by the clatter of armour, which would indicate that, as with Joe Byrne, a police bullet may have struck one of the outlaws in a spot unprotected by the armour. When Constable Dwyer saw the bodies in the back room he described Dan Kelly as wearing his breastplate still, which matches Carrington’s illustration, although some witnesses stated that the armour was found next to the bodies. This is a good indicator, if Dwyer’s description is accurate, that it was Dan Kelly who was shot while still wearing his body armour. Dwyer also described Dan as having blood all over his neck, which is feasibly where he could have been shot if his helmet was off and obviously has a high chance of resulting in a fatal wound between the spine and arteries and the various other pipes and nerves etc. in that small region that can cause death when damaged. These point to the fate of the youngest Kelly brother being that he copped a shot in the neck while his helmet was off, which killed him. Steve may have tried to get Dan comfortable by putting sacking under his head as he died.
Dan Kelly
So, what became of Steve Hart? Judging by his positioning and the lack of any visible trauma of note it might be fair to say that he committed suicide with poison. Whether he used laudanum or carbolic acid is impossible to say definitively. Potentially a laudanum overdose may have allowed Steve to go peacefully as the opiate high put him to sleep, but without knowing how much he would have ingested we can’t guarantee that he even had access to enough to kill himself. More likely a belly full of carbolic acid would have been fast acting and potent enough to induce a coma. In this case the reality is even more horrendous as it opens up the possibility that he was still alive, though unconscious, when the fire consumed him. In some descriptions Steve’s feet were on a bed, which may indicate that after consuming a fatal dose of poison he fell off the bed, which may account for the second thud Dwyer described.
It seems unlikely that Steve and Dan could be confused for each other, especially as Dwyer was well acquainted with Dan Kelly’s appearance. In the Carrington illustration we see a body encased in body armour (resembling Carrington’s depiction of Joe Byrne’s body in armour – it should be here noted that Dan’s suit was the only suit other than Joe’s to incorporate side plates to join the breastplate and backplate) and a body in shirt sleeves and a vest with a sash poking out from underneath that closely resembles the outfit worn by Steve in the only known studio portrait of him. This helps us to narrow down the identities of the bodies and identify who was likely to have been the one responsible for the thud heard by police outside the inn.
Steve Hart
Conclusion
Based on the available evidence it would appear that theory three has the most credibility, based on available evidence. Of course, we can never know for sure as the bodies were effectively cremated (which will be examined in greater detail in part two) thus rendering the bodies unidentifiable and any traces of poison or bullet wounds long gone. Even if the bodies were exhumed there is no way to determine a cause of death from the fragments of bone left in the coffins so we can only judge based on eyewitness accounts and available imagery, as outlined above. As it stands, witnesses reported that Kate Kelly was only able to identify her brother’s remains due to his distinctive teeth and no doubt this is as clear an indication as any that had the police undertaken an inquest as intended the results would have been inconclusive. Had the fire continued even twenty minutes longer, no doubt the bodies would have been reduced to ashes.
In trying to ascertain what had happened, the Royal Commission asked Superintendent Sadleir for his interpretation of the events. He reported:
“It took some time before the remains of the others could be seen, and still longer before we could get them out. It was, perhaps, close upon half-past four when we got the charred remains of Hart and Dan Kelly out on the platform. […] Their armour was lying immediately beside them. I think they died in armour. It is only my impression, and from reflection on the subject since. The armour being beside them was simply that the thongs that held them were burned, and the armour fell off. […] It depends upon how they lay; they would lie on the side, and it might fall off. They were altogether in a lump; the armour and the two bodies were as close as this—[describing by spreading his hands]. I saw the bodies as soon as they were to be observed by anybody. The smoke rose again for a moment I was with Senior-Constable Johnson, and he said, “There they are,” and we could see them, and my impression was that the armour was on them then, but I found that was a mistake—the armour was lying close to them. […] The bodies were brought down to the platform. After the bodies were removed on to the Glenrowan platform, I offered to Isaiah Wright, if the friends wished it, to give them over the bodies of Steve Hart and Dan Kelly. This seemed to please them very much, as an unexpected favor.”
The aftermath of the siege saw Superintendent Sadleir turn the bodies over to the families, Maggie Skillion taking Dan, Dick Hart taking Steve. Tom Lloyd acted as undertaker and two handsome coffins were promptly purchased for the boys who were interred in Greta cemetery in unmarked graves during a secret funeral. Oral history also suggests that the coffins buried in Greta were filled with stones and that Dan was buried on the Kelly farm on 11 Mile Creek and Steve was buried on the Hart farm on 3 Mile Creek. Regardless, the secrecy of the burial location was of extreme importance to the families as the police were endeavoring to get the bodies back and moreover it has become a sad reality that the graves would be vandalised or molested in some way by thoughtless individuals with a chip on their shoulder or a bit too much alcohol in their system as demonstrated by the various items stolen or damaged in locations life Glenrowan.
In recent years there has been controversy when it was discovered that someone had been walking around the purported site of the graves and plunging stakes into the earth in the hope of finding the coffins. No doubt this enterprising researcher had some ideas about how to prove that Dan and Steve had escaped the fire and the bodies were not really buried in Greta at all. Regardless of intention it was ghoulish and disrespectful and further highlights the continued silence on the location of the graves.
Of course, no discussion of the fate of Dan Kelly and Steve Hart is complete without a discussion of the various survival stories and conspiracy theories. To find out about these you will need to stay tuned for part two where we will examine the stories and the evidence that will disprove them.
“THE GLENROWAN TRAGEDY.” Newcastle Morning Herald and Miners’ Advocate (NSW : 1876 – 1954) 17 July 1880: 8.
Police Commission : Minutes of evidence taken before Royal Commission on the Police Force of Victoria, together with appendices. NK9833. Melbourne : John Ferres, Government Printer, 1881
Last week to celebrate the first anniversary of A Guide to Australian Bushranging and to commemorate the siege of Glenrowan, Aidan Phelan was joined by Matthew Holmes, Steve Jager and Joshua Little at the site of the siege to announce the upcoming feature film Glenrowan. The reveal caused a buzz and the call was put out for followers of A Guide to Australian Bushranging to ask some questions and in the above video are the answers.
Having successfully liberated the bank in Euroa of its wealth, the Kelly Gang went into hiding. The pursuit for the bushrangers was intensified and soon Superintendent Nicolson (who had been in charge of the hunt since the tragedy at Stringybark Creek) was replaced by Captain Standish. Standish felt that the perfect replacement for the cranky Scotchman was the man who helped Nicolson nab Harry Power in 1870, Superintendent Francis Augustus Hare. Hare was a towering, 6’3″ South African with extremely limited experience of bush work, almost no knowledge of the country the gang were hiding in and an ego big enough to convince him that these factors were irrelevant. Hare hand picked his troopers and held them in high regard for their temerity and their restraint in the face of grueling and unrelenting weather and terrain. Hare was also devout in his belief in the superior tracking abilities of the Aboriginals and had a Victorian tracker attached to his party named Moses who Hare adored then later another named Spider. Believing that he had the best task force the police could offer, Hare headed into the wild. The team would soon encounter significant obstacles in their pursuit. Hare went into detail in his memoirs about how difficult it was to find the gang:
There were peculiar difficulties connected with this undertaking… Firstly these men were natives of the district… They knew every inch of the ground, bushes and mountains; they had hiding places and retreats known to few, if any, but themselves, and they were acquainted with every track and bypath. Secondly, the sparseness of population. These men might disappear into the bush, and with their knowledge of the locality, ride hundreds of miles without coming near a dwelling-house, or meeting a human being…
Certainly this was a considerable setback for investigation. Kelly Country is an incredible patchwork of geography made up of softly undulating hills punctuated with heavily forested mountains in the Strathbogie and Warby Ranges in particular where the police knew the gang were reputed to be hiding. Ned Kelly would later brag about his ability to track the police without being noticed, even getting close enough to read and memorise the brands on their horses. When recounting details such as how many troops tended the horses or brewed the tea it was noted to be eerily accurate according to Hare. Ned of course used this to emphasise that he was no cold blooded cop killer because he could have picked off the police without setting a hair out of place if he had desired to. Yet, it was not only the geography that the troopers were struggling against.
Superintendent Hare towers over his party. Among the men in the image are Conststables Thomas Lawless, Alfred Falkiner, Joe Mayes, John Milne, Tom Kirkham, William Canny and Daniel Barry. Moses the tracker is crouched at Hare’s feet. [Source]
Perhaps the most significant obstacles came from the people. Many reports that were made to the police about gang sightings were either misinformed or stale by the time police could reach the area.
And lastly – what aided them more than anything else – they commanded an enormous amount of sympathy among the lower orders. It was a well-known fact that they had friends and adherents either open or semi-veiled, all over the colony. The families of the Kellys, Harts and Byrnes were large ones… The Kelly family are the most prolific I have ever met in my life. There was no part of the colony from which we did not receive reports of them; in every part the Kellys had a cousin, an aunt, or something… And outside their family the sympathy they obtained was almost as great, though it was more of a meretricious order… If they had not a relation they had a sympathiser who was always talking in their favour and picking up the news… The gang was lavish with its money. They subsidised largely, instituted a body of spies known as ‘Bush telegraphs’ who kept them fully informed and aided them on every possible occasion to avoid capture. Apart from the money consideration the gang never behaved badly to a woman, but always treated them with consideration and respect. In like manner they seldom, if ever, made a victim of a poor man. And thus weaved a certain halo of romance and rough chivalry around themselves…
One could be forgiven for assuming from the way Hare spoke of the syndicate of sympathisers that he viewed the gang with a sort of admiration. Certainly Ned Kelly had learned some very important lessons from his time with Harry Power about the value of maintaining sympathy via the distribution of the proceeds of crime. Of course, robbing banks proved a short-lived solution as the raid on the banks at Euroa and Jerilderie prompted the government to supply banks with armed guards. This resulted in the gang disappearing for the majority of 1879 while they devised a plan. During this time the police made moves of dubious moral substance, first arresting anyone they suspected of being a sympathiser and holding them in indefinite remand until they could find something to pin on them, second there was a rumoured blacklist that prohibited members of the Kelly, Hart and Byrne clans to buy property in the district (this included relatives such as the Lloyds). This attack on the relatives and associates of the gang, in conjunction with the £8000 reward for their capture dead or alive (£4000 each from Victoria and New South Wales) meant that the gang were becoming desperate. Ned seems to have interpreted these as acts of war of a sort and began devising a plot to escalate things to a level that would truly reflect a war between the outlaws and their supporters and the forces of the law.
Having observed Superintendent Nicolson’s success with hiring spies and informants, Hare had set about recruiting his own spies. Most significant of these was Aaron Sherritt, who Hare considered the best chance they had of nabbing the gang. Sherritt kept the police at arm’s length from the gang at all times until things began to heat up and Dan Kelly and Joe Byrne began to put pressure on him and his brother Jack. Byrne would summon the brothers to meetings in the bush but wouldn’t always be there, or when he did would look very unwell. Meanwhile Dan was prone to calling on Jack Sherritt at home, on one occasion raiding the house with a pistol in his hand. This made Sherritt understandably edgy and constables were stationed at his place around the clock to protect him. Hare had taken a particular shine to Sherritt, as had Detective Ward, and the two lavished their star informant with gifts of silverware and clothing. As well-intentioned as the constables were, they would prove to be more of a liability than insurance.
Aaron Sherritt posing in a jacket and boots gifted to him by Hare.
Hare’s attempt at active duty in the field resulted in poor health and he was replaced briefly by Nicolson but was quickly re-instated on the orders of the Chief Secretary Robert Ramsay who gave Hare Carte Blanche to tackle the pursuit however he wished. When Hare resumed work as leader of the hunt on 1 June, 1880, he took dramatic measures, arranging police to watch the domiciles of the Byrnes, Harts and Kellys (posting Constable Hugh Bracken as the lone policeman at Glenrowan to facilitate ease of spying on the Kellys in nearby Greta) then seeking to have the Queensland trackers sent home as he believed their intimidating presence was stopping the gang from emerging. When the gang re-emerged in late June 1880, Sherritt was the first domino in Ned Kelly’s master plan to land a decisive blow against the police and launch a war against the authorities. Hare had been trying to tackle seemingly deliberate inefficiency in his subordinates, namely the constables stationed with Sherritt, as their shirking of their duty was at risk of allowing the outlaws to go about unperturbed. It was in the midst of this attempt to force his constables to shape up that Joe Byrne and Dan Kelly murdered Sherritt and then threatened the other occupants of the hut – Sherritt’s wife and mother-in-law as well as the four assigned constables. This was to lure a train full of police to Beechworth to investigate while the trail was hot, only to be derailed at Glenrowan. The exact nature of Ned’s plan here was subject of much speculation, though based on comments he made to people over the course of the weekend they held Glenrowan captive, we do know he planned to destroy the train and kill all the police and black trackers on board, though his later claims contradicted this. Unfortunately Joe and Dan did such a good job of terrorising the police and then their sympathisers, clearly not understanding the plan, did such a good job of intimidating messengers that news of Sherritt’s death was unable to leave the hut until daybreak. Hare and Superintendent Sadleir would subsequently spend most of the day in the telegraph office in Benalla trying to reach Captain Standish in Melbourne in order to establish a course of action.
When things eventually fell into place for Hare, he and a party of police as well as Sub-Inspector O’Connor and his Queensland trackers headed for Beechworth via a special train. The hunt for the gang was shortly to be brought to a violent end when the police besieged Ann Jones’ Glenrowan Inn. In the fray Hare’s left wrist was shattered by a bullet from Ned Kelly – a wound that almost resulted in an amputation – and his absence from the field left a power vacuum until Sadleir arrived with reinforcements later in the morning.
Hare’s last act as head of the hunt for the gang was to lead the charge against them at Glenrowan.
Hare’s recovery was prolonged but he was healthy enough to visit Ned Kelly in the hospital of Melbourne Gaol and remain active in the aftermath of the Glenrowan siege. He gifted Joe Byrne’s armour and Ned Kelly’s Colt revolving carbine to the family who looked after him as a way of thanking them. Hare would be brought into the 1881 Royal Commission as a champion of law and order but come out the other side with his tail between his legs and a recommendation from the commission that he be redeployed away from active service. He spent the rest of his career as a police magistrate, during which time he compiled his memoirs before succumbing to diabetes in 1892.
Selected Source:
Hare, Francis Augustus. The last of the bushrangers; an account of the capture of the Kelly gang. 3d. ed. London, Hurst and Blackett ltd., 1894.
Ned Kelly’s plan was starting to fray at the edges. Since Saturday morning he had been in charge of an ever-growing collection of locals; women and children were held in Stanistreet the station-master’s house under the watchful eye of Steve Hart and the rest were over at Ann Jones’ Glenrowan Inn. It was now Sunday and the locals were growing restless – how to entertain them? How else but a dance!
This etching, based on a sketch by Thomas Carrington, depicts the famous dance at the inn that acted as a prelude to the carnage that was the Glenrowan siege. We see the crowd gathered around to observe a line of men doing a clog dance to Dave Mortimer’s concertina playing. The central figure is clearly meant to be one of the outlaws dressed in crimean shirt, cord trousers, horse-riding boots and pistol tucked into a stylish sash. Perhaps Joe Byrne dancing away thoughts of the murder of his best friend Aaron Sherritt?
Watching the proceedings is Ned Kelly flanked by fifteen year old Jane Jones, the daughter of the publican. Ned’s white topcoat is draped over his shoulders like a cloak and he wears the quilted skullcap he would later wear under his iron helmet. His arms are folded and his brow stern as he observes the frivolity. In the back of his mind, now addled with hours of alcohol consumption and lack of sleep, he would be thinking about the special police train he was expecting to come up the line from Benalla at any moment. The train, however, would be many hours away from arriving due to a series of blunders that stemmed from Joe’s and Dan’s overzealous terrorising of the police in Aaron Sherritt’s hut and the subsequent interference from sympathisers such as Joe’s brother Paddy who delayed news reaching the police.
Throughout the evening festivities would continue, performances of popular tunes such as The Wild Colonial Boy filled the air and Jane Jones would spend the evening getting cosy with the outlaws, particularly Dan Kelly who she was spotted kissing much to the chagrin of Tom Cameron, one of her schoolmates who was possibly more than a bit jealous. Joe Byrne seemed far more interested in Ann Jones, at one point being seen playing with her hair as she tugged at a ring on his finger (Joe wore Lonigan’s and Scanlan’s rings, purloined from their bodies at Stringybark Creek). All the time Ned fretted over the non-arrival of the fated train.
Finally, as the party wound down, Ned came to a decision – the prisoners were all to be sent home. It was two in the morning on Monday 28 June and Ned had finally decided to cut his losses. Before making the announcement Ann Jones convinced him to make a speech and so, overtired and full of spirits, Ned addressed the crowd. Unfortunately he was cut short by the screech of a train whistle and his brother Dan bursting in shouting about the train arriving. The prisoners were ordered to lay on the floor and Joe locked the front door, leaving the key on the mantle before the gang went into the bedroom to dress in their armour. While the gang were occupied Constable Bracken slipped the front door key into the cuff of his trousers and sneaked through the inn to keep the gang in earshot.
Heading out the back door, Ned rushes to the paddock and mounts up. He rides down the line, bitter winter cold searing his nostrils, to see the pilot engine slowing down as it approaches the station, ghostly white plumes of steam undulating into the night sky. His heart filled with rage, he curses under his breath.
