Patrick Allen, storekeeper at Benalla, 1911
“They were good fellows apart from their crimes. And they would have made splendid soldiers. It’s a pity they got a bad start.”
Detective Ward, 1911
“After the battle, Ned Kelly was lying under guard at the railway station. He said it was Jones’ whisky that killed them… He never forgot a good turn. I let him off in Wangaratta once when I should have arrested him… He never forgot that.”
Superintendent Sadleir, 1913
“The true picture of a bushranger shows him as a very poor and sordid thing indeed. The Kellys, in spite of a few successful enterprises, were as poor and unheroic as any of their kind.”
Constable Richards of Euroa, 1931
“He was a bushranger but he was the gamest man I ever saw.”
The last photo of Ned, taken the day before he was hanged.
Timeline
Acknowledgements
There are many differing versions of the story of the Kelly Gang. For the sequence of events in my book I have mainly used the books Ned Kelly: A Short Life by Ian Jones and Ned Kelly: The Authentic Illustrated History by Keith McMenomy as references. I am indebted to these historians for their years of thorough and dedicated research starting at a time when research was much more difficult than it is today and important documents were hidden in the depths of the Public Record Office Victoria.
My task in researching the Kelly story for this book was easy: the Public Record Office Victoria has put the key Kelly documents on the Internet; the newspapers of the day are all on microfilm; at the time I was writing, the Old Melbourne Gaol staged the biggest Ned Kelly exhibition ever put together; the careful referencing of Mr Jones and Mr McMenomy led me to important newspaper items and less obvious books.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mr Jones, Mr McMenomy, the Public Record Office Victoria, the National Trust of Australia and the staff at the State Library of Victoria for making the research for this book a pleasurable and stress-free experience.
Internet sites
The Victorian Public Records Office has a large collection of Kelly documents.
There is an online description of the collection with links to digital images at
http://prov.vic.gov.au/whats-on/exhibitions/ned-kelly
The State Library of Victoria has a collection of Kelly images which you can view online through the catalogue at
http://search.slv.vic.gov.au
Type Ned Kelly in the search box and select Pictures from the I want to search drop-down menu.
There is a link to a digitised version of the Jerilderie Letter at
http://slv.vic.gov.au/our-collections/treasures-curios/jerilderie-letter
Also if you can visit the State Library of Victoria, Ned’s armour and a page or two from the original Jerilderie Letter are on permanent display as part of the free exhibition The Changing Face of Victoria in the Dome Gallery.
There are many websites about Ned. One that has a lot of resources, including a digital archive of newspaper articles is the Ned Kelly Australian Iron Outlaw website.
The Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine website has detailed information about the identification of Ned’s body.
http://www.vifm.org/forensics/the-ned-kelly-project/
Sources
Black Dog Books acknowledges the assistance of the Victorian Police Historical Unit; Matt Shore at Ned: The Exhibition; the State Library of Victoria; the Public Record Office Victoria; and private collectors for allowing us to reprint the following images in Black Snake: The Daring of Ned Kelly.
Ned in boxing trunks: Private Collection
Constable Alexander Fitzpatrick: Victorian Police Historical Unit
Dan Kelly: La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria
Joe Byrne: Private Collection
Steve Hart: La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria
The clearing at Stringybark Creek: Victorian Police Historical Unit
Plain-clothed policemen involved in the hunt for the Kelly Gang: Victorian Police Historical Unit
£8000 Reward Poster: Victorian Police Historical Unit
Armour made by Kelly Gang: La Trobe Picture Collection, State Library of Victoria
Reproduced with the permission of the Keeper of Public Records, Public Record Office Victoria, Australia:
Ned’s prison record, Ned aged 15: PROV VPRS 4966/P Kelly Historical Collection, Unit 1
Cover: PROV VPRS 937/P Inward Registered Correspondence, Unit 272
The last photo of Ned: PROV VPRS 515/P Central Register of Male Prisoners, Unit 17
About the Author
Carole Wilkinson is the author of the internationally bestselling and award-winning Dragonkeeper series as well as over thirty other much-loved books. She has a fascination with dragons and is interested in the history of everything, so much so that she finds it difficult to stop researching and begin writing. Carole is married and has a daughter, and she lives in inner-city Melbourne.
First published in 2002
by Black Dog Books
an imprint of Walker Books Australia Pty Ltd
Locked Bag 22, Newtown
NSW 2042 Australia
This ebook edition published in 2014
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
Text © 2002 Carole Wilkinson
Cover image © 2005 Mark Chew
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means – electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise – without the prior written permission of the publisher.
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry:
Wilkinson, Carole, 1950– author.
Black snake / Carole Wilkinson.
Series: The Drum.
Subjects: Kelly, Ned, 1855-1880 – Juvenile literature.
Bushrangers – Australia – Biography – Juvenile literature.
364.1552092
ISBN: 978-1-922244-91-8 (ePub)
ISBN: 978-1-922244-90-1 (e-PDF)
ISBN: 978-1-922244-92-5 (.PRC)
For John and Lili
Other books by Carole Wilkinson
The Dragonkeeper series
Dragonkeeper
Garden of the Purple Dragon
Dragon Moon
Dragon Dawn (prequel)
Blood Brothers
Shadow Sister
Ramose: Prince in Exile
Ramose and the Tomb Robbers
Ramose: Sting of the Scorpion
Ramose: Wrath of Ra
Young Adult
Sugar Sugar
Stagefright
Picture Book
The Night We Made the Flag
True Tales series
Ned Kelly’s Jerilderie Letter
The Drum series
The Games
Alexander the Great
Fromelles: Australia’s Bloodiest Day at War
The Beat series
Hatshepsut: The Lost Pharaoh of Egypt
Find out about Carole’s books on her website
www.carolewilkinson.com.au