Ned Kelly was born in the Victorian bush either in 1854 or 1855. His father John ‘Red’ Kelly was an Irishman convicted of stealing two pigs and transported to Tasmania for seven years. Once released ‘Red’ moved to Victoria and married an Irish girl called Ellen Quinn, 12 years younger than he was. Ellen had nine children, Ned being the third, and the oldest boy. ‘Red’s death in 1866 left the family facing very hard times, and Ned had to learn bush work quickly to help his mother support the family. Aged about 11 Ned saved a 7-year-old boy from drowning in a local creek, and the grateful family gave the young Ned a silk sash. Ned was wearing the sash when captured by the police after his last stand at Glenrowan.

In his teens Ned was soon caught up in crime, often involving fighting, or horse or cattle theft. Ned quickly attracted the attention of the police, but was never one to bow down, overpowering one armed policeman who tried to arrest him for horse stealing. Once reinforced by other police, Ned was captured, bashed and then sentenced to 3 years in prison.

Thereafter Ned carried a hatred of the Victorian police, and this was only reinforced when, in 1878, the Kelly family clashed with constable Fitzpatrick. The constable came to the Kelly farm, supposedly to arrest Ned’s younger brother Dan. However, Fitzpatrick had been drinking to shore-up his courage and foolishly made a pass at Kate Kelly while in the cottage. The Kelly’s would have none of this. A scuffle ensued; Fitzpatrick was hit and injured, then sent on his way. He, however, alleged that a wound on his wrist came from Ned Kelly shooting him. Ned and Dan, meanwhile, had gone bush, but it was their mother, Ellen, who paid the price. She was sentenced to 3 years imprisonment.

Events then spiralled out of control. An arrest warrant was issued for Ned on a charge of attempted murder of constable Fitzpatrick. Ned and Dan, with their friends Joe Byrne and Steve Hart, were hiding out in Stringybark Creek when four heavily armed police came searching for them. To Ned’s consternation, they led a packhorse fitted with heavy leather straps, expecting to use these to take the dead bodies of Ned and Dan back into town. Instead, the Kelly gang ambushed the police and three of them were shot dead. Ned always claimed he gave them the chance to surrender, but that they fired at him first. The Victorian Parliament then passed a law declaring Ned an outlaw, liable to be shot on sight by anyone.

The Kelly gang did not lack supporters among the farming community they came from, and they moved around Victoria and across the border into New South Wales, robbing banks with the least of trouble. A huge reward was offered, and the Kelly’s shot dead a former friend, Aaron Sherritt, who they suspected had become a police informer. After robbing the Jerilderie Bank of more than two thousand pounds, Ned dictated a huge letter (written down for him by Joe Byrne), in which Ned gave his side of the troubles he had had with the police and of their unjust treatment of his family. Ned wanted the letter published in the newspapers, but it never happened in his lifetime.

Then in June 1880 Ned decided to take on the huge contingent of police being sent to capture him. He took over Glenrowan and had the railway tracks ripped up just outside the town. His plan was to derail the train on which the police were travelling, but they were warned of the trap and safely stopped their train and disembarked. The police, numbering about 50, were then able to surround the Kelly gang at the Glenrowan Inn, and a shootout began. The Kelly gang wore their famous armour, hammered from ploughshares, for the only time, but it couldn’t save them. Ned, the only survivor from his gang, was captured, but with so many wounds he was not expected to live.