Speaker 1: Happy Saturday everyone. This summer, we put out a call
Speaker 1: on our Facebook for topic suggestions that were not about
Speaker 1: the United States or Europe. We got a lot of
Speaker 1: suggestions from Australia asking us to talk about Ned Kelly
Speaker 1: or other bush Rangers. They came in but like the
Speaker 1: same time, because when I put this on our Facebook,
Speaker 1: it was the middle of the night in Australia, and
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, all of Australia, not all of Australia.
Speaker 1: People in Australia started waking up and looking at Facebook
Speaker 1: and responding to this with questions about Ned Kelly and
Speaker 1: similar folks and previous hosts Sarah and Debilina actually did
Speaker 1: three episodes about bush Rangers back in two thousand eleven.
Speaker 1: So over the next three Saturdays, we are going to
Speaker 1: share all of those and today we are starting with
Speaker 1: Ned Kelly, which first came out on June. One thing
Speaker 1: that comes up in this episode is that Sarah and
Speaker 1: Debilina didn't know the details of movies about Ned Kelly
Speaker 1: offhand when it came up in the studio. That happens
Speaker 1: to us sometimes too, and then they heard from lots
Speaker 1: of listeners about these movies after the episode originally aired.
Speaker 1: They talk about this again at the end of the
Speaker 1: third thing that we're sharing and on a Saturday, but
Speaker 1: so listeners don't have to wait that long. A couple
Speaker 1: of the examples that they talk about are the two
Speaker 1: thousand three Ned Kelly starring Heath Ledger and the nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy Ned Kelly starring Mick Jagger of all people, of course,
Speaker 1: there are plenty of others. Bush Ranger movies are a
Speaker 1: whole genre in Australian cinema. And one last note that
Speaker 1: we want to make sure we share. This episode is
Speaker 1: more than eight years old at this point, and if
Speaker 1: we were recording this same story today we would probably
Speaker 1: update various language related to criminal justice and incarceration, so
Speaker 1: just keep that in mind. Otherwise, enjoy Welcome to Stuff
Speaker 1: You Missed in History Class, a production of I Heart
Speaker 1: Radios How Stuff Works. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm to bling a chocolate boardy and I'm Sar Dowdie.
Speaker 1: And this episode starts off in one of my favorite
Speaker 1: way is the mysterious unidentified head or skull. Rather, it
Speaker 1: is a good way to start a podcast. We've done
Speaker 1: it a few times, but it's always a classic intro.
Speaker 1: So here's how this story starts. In two thousand nine,
Speaker 1: a West Australian farmer named Tom Baxer turned in a
Speaker 1: skull to the authorities, claiming that it's the skull of
Speaker 1: Ned Kelly, a famous bush ranger or bandit who was
Speaker 1: executed back in the eighteen hundreds. His body was believed
Speaker 1: to be buried in a mass grave, but for decades
Speaker 1: kelly skull lived in a display case in Melbourne Jail
Speaker 1: until that is, it was stolen in ninety so nobody
Speaker 1: has really known where the skull or the head was
Speaker 1: since then. It's been a mystery, and Baxter didn't really
Speaker 1: help illuminate that question very much. He refuses to say
Speaker 1: how he got the skull or if he was involved
Speaker 1: in its staff, which is kind of sketchy if you
Speaker 1: think about it. Yeah, I wonder if there will be
Speaker 1: more details on that aspect of it in the future,
Speaker 1: But as are as we know right now, researchers haven't
Speaker 1: positively identified the head as Ned's. In two thousand ten,
Speaker 1: they issued kind of a request for help. They had
Speaker 1: sort of reached to the end of the road and
Speaker 1: as far as they could go and testing things and
Speaker 1: they asked people to turn in any information that they know,
Speaker 1: any stories, any photographs, and at least one man, according
Speaker 1: to a story in August two thousand ten, has come
Speaker 1: forward with a tooth that he believes belonged to the skull,
Speaker 1: so a tooth that had been handed down through his
Speaker 1: family as a souvenir of Ned Kelly exactly, and he
Speaker 1: has given it to the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine,
Speaker 1: where which is the body that's conducting the research, And
Speaker 1: so we see what happens with that, I know, very funny.
Speaker 1: So there's been that renewed interest in Kelly, but really
Speaker 1: he's never really gone away from the Australian collective consciousness.
Speaker 1: He's been the celebrated outlaw, the subject of many songs,
Speaker 1: books and films over the years, and some even think
Speaker 1: of him as a national folk hero. There are others, though,
Speaker 1: who consider him just as a ruthless criminal, a villain.
Speaker 1: So we're going to try to get to the bottom
Speaker 1: of how these takes on his character could be so
Speaker 1: vastly different. And while we explore that, we're also going
Speaker 1: to take a look at his wildlife and the last
Speaker 1: stand that's been so romanticized over the years. But to
Speaker 1: really understand Ned's story first you need to know a
Speaker 1: little bit about bush rangers, and if you're not Australian,
Speaker 1: it probably doesn't really have any context for you, right,
Speaker 1: But bush rangers were basically bandits or highwaymen who specialized
Speaker 1: in robbing or bailing up as it was called, stage coaches,
Speaker 1: banks and small settlements. Yeah, we'll try to use the
Speaker 1: authentic lingo in this whenever we can. So what they
Speaker 1: did was sort of in the same vein as the
Speaker 1: legendary English highway robbers, so they're often compared to the
Speaker 1: likes of Dick Turpin. Also, sometimes you'll see comparisons to
Speaker 1: the American wild West, people like Jesse James. But the
Speaker 1: bush ranging industry actually went for longer than America's Wild
Speaker 1: West period. The main period of austra earliers bush ranging
Speaker 1: spanned about a hundred years, from the guy who's considered
Speaker 1: the first bush ranger, Black Caesar, to Ned Kelly's gang
Speaker 1: in eighteen eighty. Yeah, and there were also more bush
Speaker 1: rangers per capita in Australia than there were outlaws in America,
Speaker 1: about six thousand bush rangers during that period. That we mentioned,
Speaker 1: and a lot of these bush rangers were really just
Speaker 1: ruthless killers, but sometimes they've been glorified and characterized as
Speaker 1: robin Hood type folk heroes, mainly because of the actions
Speaker 1: of a few specific bush rangers, such as Edward Teddy,
Speaker 1: the jew Boy Davis, who supposedly treated his victims humanely
Speaker 1: and shared what he stole with the poor. And we
Speaker 1: see this idea in the Kelly story to there's certainly
Speaker 1: a robin Hood element to it. So to set up
Speaker 1: the period that this story takes in a little bit better,
Speaker 1: we should explain that within that hundred year period of
Speaker 1: bush ranging, there were two sort of sub periods. From
Speaker 1: about seventeen eighty nine to the eighteen fifties, bush rangers
Speaker 1: were mostly escaped convicts, but from the eighteen fifties to
Speaker 1: eighteen eighty or so most bush rangers were free settlers
Speaker 1: who had broken the lawn, and ned Kelly definitely fell
Speaker 1: into that ladder camp. Yeah. So. Ned Kelly was born
Speaker 1: in June eighteen fifty five in the state of Victoria, Australia,
Speaker 1: and he was the first son of Irish parents Ellen
Speaker 1: and James called Red Kelly, and his dad had somewhat
Speaker 1: of a criminal background himself. He had been transported from
Speaker 1: Ireland to Australia for stealing and Ned grew up in
Speaker 1: this clan like atmosphere of Irish Australian families in this
Speaker 1: area and according to an article by Graham Seal in
Speaker 1: History Today, they were called free selectors, so basically poor
Speaker 1: people who were allowed by the government to cultivate tracts
Speaker 1: of land for a small amount of rent. Many of
Speaker 1: these free selectors, Ned Kelly's family certainly included, made their
Speaker 1: living off of a combination of quote legal pastoral activities
Speaker 1: and illegal activities such as stock stealing, which in Australa
Speaker 1: was known as duffing, and this would consequently get them
Speaker 1: into trouble with the law now and then. Yeah, And incidentally,
Speaker 1: many feel that it's this association with an economically and
Speaker 1: politically disadvantaged social group that helped characterize bush rangers like
Speaker 1: Ned as quote poor man's heroes. So that kind of
Speaker 1: sets up the villain versus hero. Yeah, the Robin Hood motif. Right.
Speaker 1: So Ned had several run ins with the law while
Speaker 1: he was growing up. By age sixteen, he had already
Speaker 1: served one jail sentence and that year, he was convicted
Speaker 1: of receiving stolen horse and had to serve another three
Speaker 1: year jail sentence. By the time he got out in
Speaker 1: February eighteen seventy four, Seal says he had transformed into
Speaker 1: a hard, bitter man. Yeah. Still, though, he managed to
Speaker 1: stay out of trouble for a few years. Three years,
Speaker 1: and then in September eighteen seventy seven, he was arrested
Speaker 1: for public drunkenness and got into this fight with four
Speaker 1: policemen while he was trying to escape. Seven months later, though,
Speaker 1: things really elevated to another level. One of the policemen
Speaker 1: who had been involved in that fight, Constable Fitzpatrick, came
Speaker 1: to the Kelly home, not coming after Ned, but to
Speaker 1: arrest Ned's brother Dan for horse stealing. And what happened
Speaker 1: next is up for debate. Yeah, Fitzpatrick claimed that he
Speaker 1: was assaulted by the Kelly's, including the mom Ellen she
Speaker 1: got in on the fight too, But the Kellys claim
Speaker 1: that Fitzpatrick tried to molest one of the daughters, one
Speaker 1: of Ned Kelly's sisters basically, and the assault, including which
Speaker 1: included a shot to the wrist, was kind of a
Speaker 1: self defense thing. So the judge was prone to side
Speaker 1: with Fitzpatrick. He reviewed the case six months later and
Speaker 1: he sentenced Ellen to three years in jail for her
Speaker 1: role in this in this fight, and then also said
Speaker 1: that he would have given Ned and Dan fifteen years each,
Speaker 1: but they had disappeared. Yeah, Ned and Dan had fled
Speaker 1: into the Wombat Ranges and set up camp in the hills,
Speaker 1: which they knew well. Two of their friends, Steve Hart
Speaker 1: and Joe Burne, joined them there. In October though, a
Speaker 1: team of four policemen were sent to track this new
Speaker 1: Kelly Gang as they were known, down where they were
Speaker 1: camping out. Then on October the police and the Kelly
Speaker 1: Gang had a confrontation at Stringy Bark Creek and some
Speaker 1: sources you'll see that it was a police raid on
Speaker 1: the Kelly camp, and others you see that the Kelly's
Speaker 1: actually ambushed and bailed up or robbed the police, regardless
Speaker 1: of how the confrontation came about. A gunfight ensued and
Speaker 1: the three policemen were killed. One McIntyre escaped to tell
Speaker 1: the tale back in Melbourne. And after that, I mean,
Speaker 1: this was really a turning point for them. After that,
Speaker 1: the government declared the four Kelly Gang members outlaws and
Speaker 1: put a high price on their heads. They even passed
Speaker 1: something called the Outlaw React. I don't know if I'm
Speaker 1: pronouncing that right. It's kind of a strange word, but
Speaker 1: this law basically said that the rights and the property
Speaker 1: of the outlaws are forfeit and any citizen can kill
Speaker 1: them on site. Sympathizers, and they had many at the time,
Speaker 1: could also be imprisoned and lose all of their belongings
Speaker 1: as well. Okay, so you think after this new act
Speaker 1: the Kelly Gang would have sort of tried to play
Speaker 1: it cool. You know, you might have your friends turn
Speaker 1: into enemy suddenly if there's a reward, or your friends
Speaker 1: could get into trouble for for sympathizing with you. But
Speaker 1: it didn't cause the Kelly Gang to lay low at all.
Speaker 1: Less than six weeks later, on December tenth, seventy eight,
Speaker 1: they raided the town of Euroa and robbed the bank
Speaker 1: and stole food from the shops in the town. Of course,
Speaker 1: they made off with a lot of gold and cash
Speaker 1: two thousand pounds worth, but ned also stole deeds and
Speaker 1: mortgages held in the bank safe and this is something
Speaker 1: that really endeared him. To the struggling free selectors in Victoria,
Speaker 1: to the poor people. They saw the banks as discriminating
Speaker 1: against poor Irish settlers in the area. This reminded me
Speaker 1: a little bit of of Bonnie and Clyde. People liked
Speaker 1: them for for robbing banks. Yeah, once they got away,
Speaker 1: the Kelly gang divided up the loot between themselves, their families,
Speaker 1: and their sympathizers, so again sharing with people who helped
Speaker 1: them out. Authorities increased the reward for the Kelly's at
Speaker 1: this point from two thousand pounds to four thousand, but
Speaker 1: this didn't have an effect on the loyalty of their
Speaker 1: supporters at all. They even wrote songs about it. So
Speaker 1: here's just a little bit from one here. Oh Patty dear,
Speaker 1: did you hear the news that's going around on the
Speaker 1: head of bold Ned Kelly. They have placed a thousand
Speaker 1: pounds for Steve Hart and Dan Kelly. Five hundred more
Speaker 1: they'll give, but if the sum were doubled, sure the
Speaker 1: Kelly boys would love. I wish we could set that
Speaker 1: to some music. I know, if only we knew what
Speaker 1: the tune was supposed to be. Maybe maybe some of
Speaker 1: you all do. We're both thinking the same thing um.
Speaker 1: So you know, obviously, if you have people writing folk
Speaker 1: ballads about you, you're pretty popular. And that loyalty really
Speaker 1: continued into their next job, which was a raid on
Speaker 1: Gildery and during that they locked at police officers in
Speaker 1: their own cells and masqueraded around hound in the police uniform,
Speaker 1: So pretty bold stuff. Yeah, they did their usual. They
Speaker 1: held up banks and shops again, and they locked up
Speaker 1: the townspeople in the hotel. It wasn't so bad to
Speaker 1: be a hostage though, aman as long as you were
Speaker 1: in a policeman right. Apparently, the Kelly gang treated everyone
Speaker 1: to drinks and Ned made speeches. They made off with
Speaker 1: two thousand pounds once again, and once again they also
Speaker 1: burned mortgages. Ned also left a ten thousand words statement
Speaker 1: with a bank teller that came to be known as
Speaker 1: the Gildery Letter. Now that letter only exists in a copy,
Speaker 1: but it's got some pretty interesting content. It catalogs complaints
Speaker 1: and grievances of Ned Kelly and his gang against the government,
Speaker 1: the police, wealthy squatters, and basically just shows his whole
Speaker 1: point of view and why lays it all down, why
Speaker 1: people sympathize with him so at this point that Kelly
Speaker 1: Gang was really riding high, but they were also kind
Speaker 1: of nervous because the police seemed to be getting too
Speaker 1: hot on their trail. They needed to shake them off somehow.
Speaker 1: So their last raid took place June on a small
Speaker 1: town surrounding a rail station called glenn Rowan. But the
Speaker 1: raid was really about more than just getting looted this time.
Speaker 1: The night before they killed a man named Aaron Sharrett,
Speaker 1: who was a one time pier but who had also
Speaker 1: been acting as a sort of double agent. So he
Speaker 1: was a friend of the Kelly Gangs, but he was
Speaker 1: informing on them to the police, and so they had
Speaker 1: reason to kill him for for that that fact, of course,
Speaker 1: but they also hoped that his murder would lure the
Speaker 1: bulk of the Special District Police Force onto a train
Speaker 1: that would pass through glen Rowan, so his murder would
Speaker 1: essentially act as a trap for the police. So, banking
Speaker 1: on the fact that all the police would be on
Speaker 1: this train taking this train, the gang had lifted the
Speaker 1: rails off to the side near a hilltop with the
Speaker 1: intent of derailing the train and killing all the police
Speaker 1: on board and then picking off whomever was left. So
Speaker 1: after setting this up. They raided the town as usual,
Speaker 1: stole food and money, and locked up the locals and
Speaker 1: Glenn Rowan's Jones Hotel, where they sang, dance, drank, and
Speaker 1: basically carried on with the crowd while they waited for
Speaker 1: the police to arrive. So it seemed like a pretty
Speaker 1: good plan, but Ned made a couple of major mistakes here.
Speaker 1: He told the hostages about his plans for one, and
Speaker 1: then he let a few of them go home. One
Speaker 1: of them, a school teacher named Thomas Kernow, went to
Speaker 1: the track and warned the police by waving a lantern.
Speaker 1: So the train stopped just in time, and about thirty
Speaker 1: seven police got off and headed for the hotel. So
Speaker 1: when the Kelly gang heard the train stop, they knew
Speaker 1: the jig was up and they had just one more
Speaker 1: move to pull out of their bag of tricks. A
Speaker 1: few months before the attack on Glen Rowan, plowshares and
Speaker 1: some cast iron started disappearing throughout the area, and it
Speaker 1: turns out that the gang had used it to create
Speaker 1: crude suits of armor for themselves. So a little bit
Speaker 1: about this armor, which has become famous over the years.
Speaker 1: It's one of the best. Next, Yeah, if you can
Speaker 1: easily look at pictures of this, and it's probably one
Speaker 1: of the best known things about Ned Kelly and the
Speaker 1: Kelly Gang. This armor. It consisted of back and breastplates
Speaker 1: and an adjustable metal apron that protected the growing area
Speaker 1: of the wear and each suit. This is what I
Speaker 1: found really remarkable. Each suit weighed eighty pounds. Only one
Speaker 1: of them, that was Ned's, had a helmet that had
Speaker 1: slits and advisor, and that itself weighed about sixteen pounds,
Speaker 1: and he was the only one strong enough supposedly to
Speaker 1: wear the suit, the helmet and still handle a gun
Speaker 1: at the same time. Yeah, it sounds like it would
Speaker 1: be quite cumbersome, but yeah, it doesn't look very comfortable.
Speaker 1: If you do get a chance to check out these pictures,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like a broke down tin man. It
Speaker 1: does look like a really shabby tin man. And it
Speaker 1: looks like some pretty crucial areas are left vulnerable. Still,
Speaker 1: so maybe it's not quite worth it. Well, we're gonna
Speaker 1: it's funny. You should mention that. Sarah out more about that.
Speaker 1: So the bush Rangers put on this this crude armor
Speaker 1: and stood outside the hotel waiting for the police and
Speaker 1: of course, a gun battle ensued, and civilians trying to
Speaker 1: get out of the hotel during the fight didn't want
Speaker 1: to get caught in the crossfire. But the armor really
Speaker 1: didn't seem to do the gang that much good. It
Speaker 1: was clunky, of course, and it caused painful bruising when
Speaker 1: it did stop a bullet. It just was like a
Speaker 1: sheet of cast iron hitting your chest, which couldn't be
Speaker 1: very comfortable. So, perhaps not surprisingly, Joe Byrne, Dan Kelly,
Speaker 1: and Steve Hart were all shot dead during that gunfight.
Speaker 1: Ned Kelly was shot in the foot, the arm, and
Speaker 1: the thumb and several other places. It seems he retreated
Speaker 1: into the bush and lost consciousness briefly. When he woke up,
Speaker 1: though instead of escaping, he tried to attack the policeman,
Speaker 1: crashing out from behind them and firing at them the
Speaker 1: whole time. He fought them for about a half an hour,
Speaker 1: some sources say, before they finally took him down by
Speaker 1: a shotgun blast to the legs. After that, he was
Speaker 1: taken to Melbourne, where he recovered from all thirty of
Speaker 1: his wounds and stood trial and was found guilty sentenced
Speaker 1: to be hung, Even though there were public protests and
Speaker 1: some people even campaign to have a sentence reduced. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So Kelly was hanged on November eleventh, eighteen eighty and
Speaker 1: his last words were such his life. But weirdly, he'd
Speaker 1: told Justice Barry, who was the same judge who had
Speaker 1: sentenced his mom, probably already had a grudge against him,
Speaker 1: but he told Justice Barry that he Barry would shortly
Speaker 1: follow him to the grave, and sure enough Barry died
Speaker 1: of a heart attack just two weeks later. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: this must have just only added to the legend that's
Speaker 1: lived on through stories and songs. In fact, Australia's first
Speaker 1: feature length film was nineteen o six, is the Story
Speaker 1: of the Kelly Gang. I wonder if there have been
Speaker 1: movies on Kelly since then. I'm sure. I'm sure there are.
Speaker 1: I don't unfortunately have the names here, but I think
Speaker 1: there are many movies, books, um stories, songs. As we've said,
Speaker 1: there are plenty of opportunities, including many biographies on Ned
Speaker 1: Kelly's life to learn more about him. I think it's
Speaker 1: time for a new movie considering this lost, potentially rediscovered
Speaker 1: head too. Yeah, well, I think we'll have to wait
Speaker 1: to see how that mystery unravels a little more before
Speaker 1: that story is completely fleshed out. But I think you
Speaker 1: might be right. But you know, even if you're not
Speaker 1: an expert on ned Kelly, you could sort of invoke
Speaker 1: him in speech. There's a saying if someone says you're
Speaker 1: as game as Ned Kelly, that means that you're highly courageous, wicked, brave,
Speaker 1: willing to tackle big odds. Um So you could pass
Speaker 1: this on. It's like a nice thing to say to people.
Speaker 1: I hope the Australians say wicked brave. That's what you
Speaker 1: get from living in Boston. Yeah, well, what can I say?
Speaker 1: Language seems to stick with us no matter where we are.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for joining us today for this
Speaker 1: Saturday classic. If you have heard any kind of email
Speaker 1: address or maybe a Facebook you are l during the
Speaker 1: course of the episode, that might be obsolete. It might
Speaker 1: be doubly obsolete because we have changed our email address again.
Speaker 1: You can now reach us at History podcast, asked at
Speaker 1: I heart radio dot com, and we're all over social
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