Black Snake Book
Black Snake Book
Black Snake Book
Early Days
“Everyone looks on me like a black
snake.”
Letter to Sergeant Babington, July
1870
Ned Kelly was born in 1854 in the
bush not far north of Melbourne. His
father was called Red because of
his red hair. He was a freed Irish
convict, who had served his seven-
year sentence in the penal colony of
Van Diemen’s Land (present day
Tasmania) for stealing two pigs.
Ned’s mother, Ellen, was also Irish.
Her large family, the Quinns, had
emigrated to Australia when she
was just nine years old.
The Kellys were poor people, but
Red made a little money in the
goldfields and was able to buy 41
acres of land near the small town of
Beveridge. The family grew, and for
a while it looked like the Kellys
were on their way to being
successful farmers. This period of
good fortune didn’t last long. Ned’s
father had no experience as a
farmer. The conditions in Victoria,
from drought to flood, were
unfamiliar to even experienced
farmers. Beveridge didn’t flourish as
expected. The road to Sydney
skirted around the town, instead of
going through it and bringing more
business. The Kelly land lost value.
Before Ned’s third birthday, his
father got into debt and had to sell
most of the land for half its original
price. Things didn’t improve.
Selectors versus Squatters
When Ned was 12 years old his
father died. A widow with seven
children could not afford to buy
land, but Ned’s mother was
determined that the family would
have land of their own. She didn’t
want them to be like poor tenant
farmers in Ireland, under the thumb
of some rich English landowner. The
government had a way for poor
people to buy land. It was called
selection. A family would “select” a
piece of land from allotments in
unsettled areas and pay rent on it.
If they paid their rent regularly for
around seven years and looked
after the land, doing what the
government called “improvements”,
the land would become theirs. The
improvements involved building
homes and other farm buildings,
clearing areas of bush to make
fields and putting up fences.
It was a hard life. To survive, the
selectors grew wheat and
vegetables and kept cattle. They
had to produce enough to feed
themselves and earn enough to pay
rent and do the required
improvements on the land. This
could be achieved with a lot of hard
work when the conditions were
right, but that wasn’t always the
case. There were seasons when
there was no rain and the crops
died. There were bushfires that
could destroy years of hard work in
one afternoon. The government
wanted the selectors to grow
wheat, but often the land wasn’t
good to start off with and was
unsuited to wheat growing.
The best land, vast areas of it, was
owned by the squatters. Today we
call someone who lives illegally in a
house a squatter. At the beginning
of white settlement in the 1800s,
squatters were men who claimed
thousands of hectares of rural land
in New South Wales and then in
Victoria. They legally took whatever
land they wanted. Even though the
rich squatters had the biggest and
the best pieces of land, they were
unhappy about the government
allowing poor people to take up
selections. If any cattle belonging
to selectors wandered onto
squatters’ land, they impounded it
and the selectors had to pay to get
their own stock back. The selectors
resented the squatters who had got
the best land for nothing.
“Whitty and Burns, not being
satisfied with all the picked land on
King River and Boggy Creek…paid
heavy rent for all the open ground,
so as a poor man could not keep his
stock, and impounded every beast
they could catch, even off
Government roads.”
Ned’s complaints against squatters,
Cameron Letter, December 1878
Head of the Family
Ned’s mother selected a piece of
land near the town of Greta on the
Eleven Mile Creek. Ned had to work
hard on his family’s land, cutting
down trees, digging out stumps,
making fences. Ned wasn’t the
eldest child in the family, but he
was the eldest son. After his
father’s death, he became the head
of the family. As role models he had
his uncles and cousins. If they
taught Ned anything, it wasn’t how
to be an honest law-abiding citizen.
A dozen of his relatives had criminal
records. Between them they were
arrested more than 60 times in
Ned’s lifetime. There was always
one of Ned’s relatives in jail for
something.
Ned had his first brush with the
police in 1867, just after his father
died. A neighbour claimed Ned had
stolen his horse and reported the
theft to the police. Though it was
noted in the
Police Gazette
, fortunately for Ned, the charge
was dropped and nothing came of
it.
Local Hero
Other local people suspected that
Ned had stolen horses from them,
including a family called the
Sheltons. But Ned did something
that made this family forget about
their missing horse and remember
Ned with gratitude. Their young
son, Dick, was walking to school
one day when he fell into the river.
Eleven-year-old Ned happened to be
passing by and jumped into the river
to rescue the drowning lad. The
grateful Sheltons praised Ned’s
bravery and gave him a strange
reward. It was a specially made
green silk sash, seven feet long and
trimmed with a fringe made of real
gold threads. It was meant to be
worn over one shoulder. Ned was
very proud of his sash and wore it
on special occasions.
Horseplay
As Ned grew up, he developed a
love of horses. Dressed in moleskin
pants and high leather boots, Ned
found time between his farm chores
to become an excellent horseman.
He liked to show off his riding skills
by riding down the main street of
Greta on unbroken horses. The
residents of Greta stood back in
fear as the wild horses tried
unsuccessfully to buck him off.
There was not much in the way of
entertainment in small country
towns in the 1870s. Community
picnics and sports meetings were
occasions that everyone looked
forward to. People came from miles
around to attend. At these events,
Ned performed demonstrations of
trick riding. On a galloping horse he
would lean down out of his saddle
to snatch up a handkerchief from
the ground. He would also kneel on
the horse’s back as it leapt over
fences at lightning speed.
Further Education
Ned had unusual eyes. A policeman
once said that he had “dingo eyes”.
A doctor who tended to Ned said he
had what was known as
“Alexandrite” eyes. When people
with Alexandrite eyes become
angry or excited they glow red.
Ned went to school for less than
two years. He must have been a
bright boy because in that time he
managed to learn how to read, write
and do basic arithmetic. When Ned
was ten, his father spent six
months in jail for stealing a cow.
Ned left school to take his father’s
place on the farm. That was the end
of his schooling, but not the end of
his education.
Four years later, Ned became an
apprentice. Not as you might
expect to a builder or a stockman,
but to a bushranger. Harry Power
wasn’t a very impressive looking
bushranger. He was short, middle-
aged, bad-tempered and he had
problems with his bowels. He
wasn’t very successful either. He
had quite a talent for getting caught
by the police. Harry spent 32 years
in jail—almost half his life.
Juvenile Bushranger
The bushranger and his young
assistant specialised in highway
robbery. They would hide in the
Strathbogie Ranges and suddenly
appear on the road-side, pointing
guns at unsuspecting travellers and
demanding their money and
valuables. They didn’t earn a
fortune, but £10 here, a gold watch
there and the occasional good
quality saddle made it worth their
while.
Ned’s mother didn’t object to her
son becoming a bushranger. She
probably looked forward to getting
Ned’s cut of the spoils. Mrs Kelly
made money illegally herself, by
selling alcohol to passing travellers.
Ned didn’t like the life of a
bushranger though. Sleeping
outside in all kinds of weather,
eating poorly and putting up with
Harry’s bad moods wasn’t much fun.
After just a few months as an
apprentice bushranger, Ned left
Harry and went back home. He had
become known as Power’s
apprentice though and troopers
arrived to arrest him early the next
morning.
Young Ned spent several weeks in
jail but was released without going
to trial. Harry was caught after
Ned’s release, and believed that
Ned had told the police where his
hideout was. It wasn’t Ned who got
the £500 reward for Harry’s capture
though, it was one of Ned’s uncles.
Out of Luck
Ned was lucky that neither of his
early brushes with the law had led
to him going to prison. But it wasn’t
long before he ended up in jail. He
got caught up in an ugly argument
between two hawkers (people who
travelled around the countryside
selling goods to farmers). They
exchanged insults, and then
punches. Ned was drawn into a
fight that had nothing to do with
him.
It wasn’t a serious crime, but this
time his luck ran out. Ned claimed
he was innocent but he was
charged with “violent assault”. His
sentence was to pay a fine of £10
plus an additional sum of £60 as a
bond that he would not get into
trouble again. This doesn’t sound
like a lot of money, but in 1869 £50
was as much as a labouring man
would earn in a year. Ned’s family
managed to scrape together the
£60, but couldn’t find the other £10.
Instead of paying the fine, Ned had
to serve six months in jail. He was
15 years old.
In Fear
Ned could have chosen to head to
New South Wales, even to try to get
out of the country, perhaps to make
a new life in America, but he didn’t.
While his mother was in jail, Ned
still had a job to do. He wouldn’t be
going anywhere until she was freed.
Most of the time that the gang was
on the run, they were no more than
50 kilometres from the Kelly home
at Greta.
After the Stringybark Creek killings,
Ned and his mates were no doubt
expecting to be hounded down by a
vengeful police force and outraged
public. Yet the police force in
Victoria, along with most of the
general population, were terrified of
the Kelly Gang. Though the number
of police in North Eastern Victoria
was almost doubled, they showed a
definite reluctance to go anywhere
near places the gang was
suspected of being.
Close Shave
The Kelly Gang was very lucky. In
the early hours of the morning, 36
hours after the killings, the gang
was seen trying to find a way
across the flooded Ovens River by
Constable Bracken, who knew the
Kellys. News of the killings hadn’t
yet reached the constable. He
waited until the telegraph office
opened the next morning before he
reported the sighting. By the time
troopers arrived, the gang had
slipped away.
This wasn’t the only close call. Four
days later, local police were hot on
the outlaws’ trail. As torrential rain
continued to fall and the
floodwaters rose, the gang
continually found their way blocked
by lagoons. With the police right on
their tail, the waters had cut them
off and they were trapped on an
island surrounded by flooded land.
The gang were forced to dismount
and let their horses go, while they
themselves waded into the water to
hide in some reeds. Standing up to
their necks in water, with their guns
wet and useless, they held their
breath as the unsuspecting group of
policemen rode by. The gang then
rounded up their horses and as
darkness fell, they risked lighting a
small fire to dry themselves and
their guns.
They eventually crossed the flooded
Ovens River, but this involved a
daring dash through the town of
Wangaratta in the dead of night.
Little did they know that 22
troopers, brought in for the search
and due to start searching the
following day, were sleeping in a
local hotel. Once again, the gang
were seen, this time by local
farmers. From the direction they
were heading in, it looked like they
were planning to take cover in the
Warby Ranges.
Top Brass
“… a parcel of big ugly fat-necked
wombat headed big bellied magpie
legged narrow hipped splaw-footed
sons of Irish Bailiffs or English
landlords which is better known as
Officers of Justice or Victorian
Police…”
Ned’s opinion of the police,
Jerilderie Letter
So far Ned and his friends had had
luck on their side. But as police
officers moved in from around
Victoria, they also had something
else on their side—the unintentional
help of incompetent and cowardly
senior police officers.
Top-ranking policemen were sent to
head the hunt for the Kelly Gang.
Superintendent Nicolson had been
put in charge of the search.
Superintendent Sadleir, head of the
North Eastern Victoria police
district, joined him. The Chief
Commissioner of Police, Captain
Standish, came up from Melbourne
to take part in the search. Inspector
Brooke Smith from Beechworth was
also called in.
Brooke Smith was one of the
policemen who had been sleeping in
the hotel when the gang crept
through Wangaratta. The next
morning, when an excited constable
told him the news of a Kelly Gang
sighting right in Wangaratta,
Inspector Brooke Smith didn’t see
any need to rush off immediately. In
fact it was two days before the
inspector and his party were ready
to set out after the gang. Even then
they didn’t head for the Warby
Ranges, but further north.
Inspector Brooke Smith was never
in a hurry to get after the Kelly
Gang. He didn’t like getting up early
in the morning. It sometimes took
his men more than four hours to get
him out of bed. At other times
they’d leave without him and he’d
catch up with them after lunch. He
didn’t like camping out in the bush
either. Even when, by pure luck,
they came across fresh tracks, he
insisted on going back to his
comfortable hotel in Wangaratta for
the night. By the time they rode
back to the tracks the following
morning, the Kellys were long gone.
“…that article that reminds me of a
poodle dog half clipped in the lion
fashion, called Brooke E. Smith
Superintendent of Police he knows
as much about commanding Police
as Captain Standish does about
mustering mosquitoes and boiling
them down for their fat…”
Ned’s opinion of Brooke Smith,
Jerilderie Letter
Rats’ Castle Fiasco
Superintendents Sadleir and
Nicolson didn’t do much better.
Information had been received from
a man who was “not quite sober”
that the Kellys were hiding in hills
near Beechworth. Even though this
information was unreliable and five
days old, a search of the rocky
area, known locally as Rats’ Castle,
was planned.
Neither Sadleir nor Nicolson wanted
to take charge of the raid and each
led separate groups of men. They
had no firm plan, but thought that
the Kellys might be sleeping in a
hut in the area and if they struck
before dawn they could capture
them.
The police assembled in the dark.
The Chief Commissioner, Captain
Standish, joined the company. He
had emigrated to Australia using a
false name to escape gambling
debts in England. He continued to
be addicted to gambling in the
colonies. He once lost six months
salary in one night.
Standish and other enthusiastic
local men were all keen to go down
in history as the men who caught
the Kellys. Some newspaper
reporters from Melbourne also
joined the search party which by
now was nearly 50 strong.
Under cover of darkness, they
raided three huts, but the noise of
so many horses could be heard for
miles around. Even if the gang had
been there, the thunder of
approaching horses’ hooves would
have given them plenty of warning.
The officers questioned the people
who lived in the huts. A crowd of
spectators grew, as neighbours and
men mining in the area came to see
what all the fuss was about. By this
time it was morning and everyone
was hungry. Refreshments were
sent for and everyone settled down
to a pleasant breakfast in the bush.
The police decided that the day’s
search was over and the searchers
went back to Beechworth.
Renewed Confidence
After two months on the run, Ned
was confident that the gang could
evade the bungling police forever.
He didn’t like being continually
dependent on the charity of poor
farmers for food, though. He needed
money. The Kelly Gang had already
run rings around one symbol of
authority—the police. Next they
would take on the banks.