In 1880 Australia's most notorious bushranger, Ned Kelly, was executed for murder. Famous for his distinctive home made suit of armour, he is now an Australian legend. However, is Ned really Australia's greatest rebel & folk hero or just a murderous thug?
View Outlawed - The Real Ned Kelly. Video hosted on Guba. Narrated by renowned Australian actor Jack Thompson, this documentary tells the story of a man who for most Australians is our first revolutionary, a persecuted hero who fought to tear his country from the shackles of Mother England and free his people from the corruption of British rule. From the moment the Kelly Gang burst out of the Glenrowan Inn in 1880 clad in suits of iron forged from old farm ploughs, he was set not only to take on the colony's rogue police force, but to become Australia's very own knight in shining armour.N/p>
Today his values are touted as those of a nation, he is our beloved 'underdog', the true 'Aussie battler'. At the Sydney 2000 Olympics, hundreds of Ned Kellys cavorted around in the Opening Ceremony, their armour suits glinted in the beam of the international spotlight, their guns fizzed with firework sparks. Ned Kelly had made it.
Now descendants of the Kelly Gang, the police officers murdered at Stringybark Creek and the Glenrowan hostages, alongside leading Kelly experts and Australia's number one criminal profiler, help build a far more alarming picture of the man. Ned Kelly may not be the rebel hero he is cut out to be, he may have been little more than a horse thief, a bank robber, a cop killer, a colonial terrorist, a murderous thug.
Ned Kelly (1855-1880), outlaw and folk hero of the Australian bush, executed for murder. The eldest son of Irish-born parents, Kelly, born Edward Kelly, is said to have been raised in an environment hostile to the British colonial administration. When his father died, Kelly's mother and seven children moved to the Glenrowan area in northeast Victoria, now commonly called Kelly country. There, they lived among the rural poor, and soon thereafter Kelly began stealing livestock. In 1870 Kelly was sentenced to six months of hard labor for assault, and in 1871 he was sentenced to three years in jail for receiving a stolen horse.
In 1877 a policeman arrived at the Kelly home to arrest Dan Kelly, Ned's brother, on a charge of stealing stock animals. A fight broke out, and the policeman was shot and wounded. Kelly's mother was sentenced to hard labor for her part in the attempted murder, and Dan and Ned hid with two others in the Wombat Ranges. In late 1878 the Kelly gang killed three policemen in a shootout at Stringybark Creek, northeast of Melbourne, and by this time their story had become a drama throughout the colony. The bushrangers were declared outlaws and a reward of £500 was offered for each, dead or alive. For almost two years, the gang raided towns, robbed banks, and became legendary. Kelly was particularly renowned for his makeshift metal body armor. In June 1880 they were finally cornered by police in a hotel in Glenrowan. All were killed except Ned, who was captured, tried, and convicted. Despite a reprieve petition signed by more than 30,000, he was hanged on November 11.
At the time of his death, Kelly was seen as a representation of the underprivileged and those victimized by the law. Since then, he has become one of Australia's most enduring legends.
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