Sure enough, the bullets bounced off the armour, prompting the apocryphal cry from an officer, “He’s the Devil!”, to which Kelly replied, “No, I am Ned Kelly”.....
The Breezer - the joyride for a curious mind: A weekly newsletter from Steve Winduss at the Batting the Breeze podcast. Spend a few minutes with me discovering historical snippets and fascinating facts related to the forthcoming week. Add to that updates relating to the podcast, a touch of humour and a dash of "lots more".22nd June 2025.
Happy Sunday! When I first visited Australia in 1976, aged 12, one of the highlights was touring the Old Melbourne Gaol, the final destination of the infamous Australian outlaw Ned Kelly. The sight of the gallows from which he had been hanged was quite haunting. At that age in the seventies, my fertile mind swirled with the daring adventures of outlaws such as Dick Turpin, Billy the Kid, Butch Cassidy and Jesse James. These characters were always portrayed in an ambiguous light; it was never clear whether they were heroes or villains. The same applied to Ned Kelly. Edward ‘Ned’ Kelly was born in Beveridge, Victoria in 1854. Queen Victoria had been on the throne for 17 years and the British Empire was expanding across the globe at an unprecedented rate.
Ned Kelly, aged 15.
While Britain was reaping the benefits of the Industrial Revolution ahead of its European counterparts and the rest of the world, Australia was still a disorganised collection of colonies; federation and unification would not arrive for another 47 years, in 1901. True, the Australian gold rushes had breathed a new energy into towns across New South Wales and Victoria, but poor families rarely had either the capital or time to leave their farms to speculate in the new boom. The Irish Catholic Kelly family’s tangle with British authorities had started back in Ireland in 1841. On New Year’s Day, Ned’s father, John ‘Red’ Kelly, was convicted of the heinous crime of stealing two pigs from Lord Ormonde’s Killarney estate. He would serve seven years ‘transportation’, shipped abroad to a British colony to carry out forced labour for the period. Since the start of the American War of Independence (Revolutionary War) in 1776, the British had lost the ability to dump convicts in large numbers abroad. The timing of Captain Cook’s claim on the East Coast of Australia in 1770 was opportune to say the least. By 1788, as disease-ridden hulks overflowed with convicts (i.e. decommissioned Royal Navy ships moored in rivers and ports across the south of England), Captain Arthur Phillip led the First Fleet of 11 ships into Botany Bay, New South Wales, carrying approximately 775 convicts, 550 crew and their families.
The noble 74-gun Royal Navy ship HMS Warrior fought through the Napoleonic Wars. From 1840, she was converted to a prison ship ‘hulk’ (image), stationed at Woolwich on the River Thames, before being broken up in 1857.
And so it was that in 1841, Red Kelly was shipped 15,000 miles over four months from Dublin to Tasmania (then Van Diemen’s Land). Red would be released in 1848 and move to Victoria, where he would meet his future wife, Ned’s mother, Ellen Quinn. It was only a matter of time before the Kellys started their repeated brushes with the law. The Australian ‘squattocracy’ had laid claim to most of the rich arable land on a first-come, first-served basis. Families such as the Kellys were left with rocky, sandy and infertile land which was either too dry or too wet to grow enough crops to feed themselves, let alone earn a profit.
Out of Curiosity
The Squattocracy was early Australia’s version of Aristocracy, with a twist. Free settlers, often middle and upper class English and Scottish, used their connections and wealth to help themselves to the best land, laying claim simply by settling on it. At the time, governments were powerless to stop them. After the ten-year land-grab, the British government and colonial authorities decided that if you can’t beat them, you might as well join them. Instead of enforcing the law, they took the easy route and legitimised squatters as bona fide leaseholders of the land in return for annual licence fees. The historical injustices of the time still create tension today in Australia, felt not least by the indigenous population who had lived on the land for 40,000 years before the British first arrived.
Red Kelly died in 1866, leaving Ned as the man about the house at the age of 12. An absconding prisoner and family connection, Harry Power, introduced Ned to the world of bushranging in the late 1860s. A bushranger typically lived in the outback, stealing cattle and horses, committing highway robbery and robbing banks when the opportunity arose. Kelly was first sent to prison in the 1870s, which marked a steady decline in his respect for law and order and a rapid increase in his commitment to criminality. That commitment reached a crescendo one day in 1878. Constable Alexander Fitzpatrick appeared at the Kelly home to arrest Ned’s brother, Dan, on a trumped-up charge. What happened next depends on whose version of events you choose to believe: The Kellys testified that Fitzpatrick arrived drunk and tried to kiss Ned’s 14-year-old sister. Dan wrestled Fitzpatrick to the ground, at which point the constable’s gun went off, injuring his wrist. However, according to Fitzpatrick, whose reputation for honesty was as fragile as a house of cards, he was attacked by Ned, Dan and other family members. Ned then shot him in the wrist. He avoided death by escaping in the confusion of the moment.
Constable Alexander Fitzpatrick, c1878.
The Fitzpatrick incident of 15 April 1878 was the point at which Ned, Dan and friends Joe Byrne and Steve Hart fled to the bush. The notorious Kelly Gang was born. For the next six months, the Kelly Gang successfully evaded capture, hiding in various locations within the Wombat Ranges of northeastern Victoria. On 26 October 1878, four police officers succeeded in tracking the gang down at Stringybark Creek. Before they had set camp, Ned and his band of brothers ambushed the police, killing three of them. The Kelly Gang were now Australia’s most wanted criminals. The Gang subsequently - and successfully - carried out two bank robberies at Euroa, Victoria and Jerilderie across the border in New South Wales. Their growing sense of invincibility would be their downfall.
The gang hatched a master plan to wipe out a complete posse of pursuing police officers. They would murder Aaron Sherritt, a former friend turned police informer, in order to attract further police from Melbourne to the area by train. They would then derail the train and massacre all the policemen on board. To contain the situation, they would hold the whole town of Glenrowan hostage in the Glenrowan Inn while they executed the plan. What could possibly go wrong? Well, Aaron Sherritt was murdered on cue, and 60 townsfolk were successfully taken hostage in the Glenrowan Inn. But then the plan started to unravel. Firstly, the gang released Thomas Curnow and his wife on the grounds that she was sick. Instead of returning home, Curnow flagged down the approaching police train. The forewarned police then surrounded the inn, and a ferocious gunfight broke out. Ned Kelly had donned a homemade suit of armour, crafted from bullet-resistant iron plough mouldboards. He boldly stepped out of the inn to confront the police. Sure enough, the bullets bounced off the armour, prompting the apocryphal cry from an officer, “He’s the Devil!”, to which Kelly replied, “No, I am Ned Kelly”.
Out of Curiosity
Ned Kelly’s iconic suit is on display today at the State Library of Victoria, Melbourne, along with other artefacts from the era.
The armour may have proved invincible if Ned had thought to protect his exposed legs. I have often wondered why, in the movies, police in car chases will shoot at everything except the tyres. Likewise, it took the police a while to realise that a couple of well-aimed shots to Kelly’s legs would bring the infamous outlaw down to earth - literally. But eventually, one of the officers caught on. As shotgun blasts peppered Kelly’s thighs and legs, he crumpled to the ground in his 45-kilogram iron suit, a metallic clang echoing across the battle scene. The gathering crowd looked on in awe. Some gaped silently in disbelief while others cheered. At dawn, one hundred and forty-five years ago this Saturday, 28 June 1880, Ned Kelly’s Last Stand was over.
“The capture of Ned Kelly” (28 June 1800); wood engraving, printed in The Illustrated Australian News on 3 July 1880.
Although the gang leader was now subdued and in police custody, the siege of the inn continued until 3 pm when the police decided to set it alight. Most of the hostages had already escaped. As it transpired, Ned's accomplices - Joe Byrne, Dan Kelly and Steve Hart - were already dead, as were two of the hostages. At Ned Kelly’s trial, after the Judge had passed sentence and pronounced death by hanging, Kelly replied, “I will see you there, where I go.” Ned Kelly was hanged on 11 November 1880. Judge Barry died just 12 days later.
Ned Kelly is brought to the scaffold at the Melbourne Gaol, November 1880.
Was Ned Kelly a Robin Hood hero figure, standing up for the poor and oppressed against the injustices of British rule, colonial prejudice and police corruption? Was he singled out for his Irish Catholic heritage? Or was Kelly simply a thief, violent criminal and psychopathic murderer? This spectrum of opinions has kept the Ned Kelly legend alive for nearly 150 years. It turns out that Australians themselves are still divided. Either way, this Victorian outlaw is deeply ingrained in Australian folklore, embodying the independent spirit and cheerful defiance of authority often associated with the Australian character today. While the memory of other notorious bushrangers has faded, Ben Hall, Daniel ‘Mad Dog’ Morgan and Captain Thunderbolt, the fire of the Ned Kelly legend still burns bright. Visitors flock to Glenrowan nowadays to experience the Ned Kelly story. Ironically, the man who died fighting the establishment has become the centrefold for a vibrant tourism industry profiting from his legacy. As Ned Kelly reportedly said as he stood on the gallows at the Melbourne Gaol that day:
Such is life.
Ned Kelly the day before his execution, November 1880.
Dates with History
Monday...
One of the most striking and enduring images of World War II is that of Adolf Hitler, Albert Speer and Arno Breker posing on the esplanade in front of the Palais de Chaillot in Paris, with the Eiffel Tower prominent in the background.
Adolf Hitler, Albert Speer and Arno Breker posing on the esplanade in front of the Palais de Chaillot.
The photo was taken 85 years ago tomorrow, 23 June 1940, the day after France signed the armistice with Germany. North and west France (including Paris) succumbed to German occupation, while the southeast - administered from the city of Vichy - became the so-called ‘free zone’ under the leadership of French Nazi collaborator Marshal Philippe Pétain and his Vichy regime. The photo opportunity formed part of a Nazi propaganda effort to symbolise the Nazi victory and to humiliate the French nation. Of course, the French would have the last laugh.
Tuesday...
The start of the Printing Revolution was catalysed by the invention of a mass-production printing press in the 1440s, laying the groundwork for its successors, the Industrial Revolution and the Digital Revolution (and now the AI Revolution). The effects of bulk printing were profound. Books were in greater supply and cheaper, allowing access to a much wider audience. Information was democratised, taking away control from the clergy and paving the way for the European Renaissance. Access to books ignited freedom of thought and spawned a new creative era, reducing the authority of the Church and renewing an interest in art, literature, philosophy and science. The inventor of this first truly commercial printing press, Johannes Gutenberg, was born 625 years ago this Tuesday, 24 June 1400*.
A replica of the Gutenberg Press featured at the Featherbed Alley Printshop Museum, St George’s, Bermuda.
The Gutenberg Press, as it became known, wasn’t the world’s first printing press. The Chinese had developed woodblock printing several hundred years earlier, with movable blocks following in the 11th century. Where Gutenberg’s Press excelled was in the combination of easily movable letter blocks, overall mechanism design and oil-based ink. The speed of the press brought the cost of printing down sufficiently to facilitate the revolutionary changes mentioned above in a way that older Chinese presses had not.
*Disputed, but probably.
By the Way
The master comic actor of silent movies in the early 20th century, Charlie Chaplin, was born in London in 1889. Charlie and his brother were left without parents from an early age and literally had to sing and dance for their supper. Charles Spencer Chaplin came to prominence in 1914 when he created the Little Tramp, that whimsical chap with a funny walk, oversized shoes, grubby suit, battered bowler hat and iconic moustache.
Charlie Chaplin, the Little Tramp, 1919.
Out of curiosity Chaplin’s creation, the Little Tramp, was as recognisable by his toothbrush moustache as Adolf Hitler was by his. In Germany, where Chaplin had become a hit in the 1920s, the toothbrush was known as the Chaplinbart - the ‘Chaplin beard’. Doesn't it seems odd that, several years after Chaplin’s moustache had become widely recognised, Hitler adopted the same Chaplinbart? By the way, Charlie Chaplin was born four days before Adolf Hitler on 16 April 1889.
By 1919, Chaplin had formed his own studio, United Artists, in partnership with fellow actors Douglas Fairbanks, D.W. Griffith and Mary Pickford. This new artistic freedom allowed him to start producing - and starring in - his own films. Chaplin's favourite film, The Gold Rush, was released 100 years ago this Thursday, 26 June 1925. In the classic silent movie, the Tramp hopes to strike it rich in the Klondike Gold Rush of 1896-99 in Yukon, Canada. The usual slapstick adventures ensue, during which Chaplin falls in love with a dance hall girl, Georgia, and at one stage is forced to dine on his own boot due to hunger.
Charlie Chaplin is forced to eat his own boot in The Gold Rush, 1925.
Perhaps the best-remembered scene is when Chaplin, fantasising about dining in female company, skewers two bread rolls with forks, adopts them as legs and feet, and performs a most charming dance. If you get a few moments, enjoy the sheer magic of Charlie Chaplin's Dance of the Rolls.
Question of the Week
The Tudors are an endless source of fascination in British history. Some might suggest that this is partly due to the insatiable conjugal appetite of Henry VIII, leading to a procession of six wives, who were famously… divorced, beheaded, died, divorced, beheaded, survived. Henry’s fourth marriage was particularly disappointing. He had agreed to the marriage on political grounds, but was underwhelmed when he first met his bride. Let’s just say that the artist of the portrait of Henry's bride-to-be, sent to him in advance of their first meeting, may have been a little too generous with the brush. The Tudor king was so unattracted to his betrothed that he couldn’t bring himself to ‘be intimate’ with her. The marriage was never consummated. The bride was asked to leave Henry’s court 485 years ago on Tuesday, 24 June 1540. She accepted the terms of the annulment calmly, a shrewd move, methinks. Who was Henry VIII’s fourth wife?
And finally…
In the 1980s in England, students in the fifth year, i.e. 16-year-olds, would take O-Levels, now superseded by GCSEs, as the defining statement of five years of educational slog. The importance attached to these exams was only matched by the intensity of the celebration that followed afterwards. Students would party hard and consume large quantities of alcohol despite being demonstrably underage. They would hit the pubs and nightclubs while displaying a lack of inhibition that they, and those around them, had never seen before. Most inhibition would occur at impromptu barbecues held in parks or on beaches where the lack of illumination was favourable for the more adventurous. My personal revelry had to wait a few days. Having put down my pen from the last, and disastrous, biology exam where I had mistaken a rabbit’s digestive tract for its reproductive system, I was immediately co-opted into the school’s record-breaking attempt to play the world’s longest ever game of….. cricket. (St Peter’s, Bournemouth for the record, so to speak.) If you're more familiar with baseball, cricket has been described as its "older, slower, tea-drinking cousin who insists on telling stories that take all afternoon to finish". Cricket must be the only game in the world that can last five days and still end in a draw. For those of you who think cricket is boring, try playing non-stop for nearly a whole week - to be more precise, over six nights and seven days. The first ball was bowled 45 years ago this Wednesday, 25 June 1980. For the first hour, a curious crowd were treated to fierce bowling, swashbuckling batting and fielders sprinting to prevent boundaries as if their lives depended on it.
The intrepid St Peter’s School record breakers on Day 1 of the longest game of cricket ever played, 1980. The clipping from the 1980 Guinness Book of Records is also shown. In front of me, wearing the British regalia, is a chap called Ken Bailey. Ken would hit the national headlines two years later when he rushed to cover up the topless Erica Roe at half time during the England v Australia rugby international at Twickenham in 1982, as she performed “the greatest streak in sporting history". And he covered her up! Perhaps I’ll share that story one day, I was there.
By nightfall on the first evening, everyone was knackered. The hailstorm of bowling had reduced to a drizzle and the batsmen could barely lift the bat ready to meet the ball. An impromptu think tank concluded that to survive the remaining six days to break the record, some engineering was required. Subsequently, bowlers couldn’t aim at the stumps until an allotted time had passed, with similar restrictions for fielders not catching and batsmen not hitting the ball too hard. An innings was designed to last three hours, which would give the off-field batsmen time to get at least some sleep. And so it went on. Rain or shine. Day and night. The record attempt nearly fell short on evening six, when the number ten for the batting team refused to get out of bed when it was his turn to bat. We manhandled the semi-conscious objector out of his tent, laying him down at the bowler’s end to continue his slumber while his teammate batted on. Around 8 a.m. on the morning of 1 July 1980, we broke the record, 137 hours non-stop, and into the Guinness Book of Records we went. I was disappointed to find out recently that another team broke our record a year later.
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Steve
HOST & CHIEF STORY HUNTER
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Henry VIII’s fourth wife was the German-born Anne of Cleves. For her gracious acceptance of the annulment, Anne was given the honorary title “the King’s beloved Sister” and she remained friends with the King and his children until her death 17 years later in 1557 at the age of 41.
Anne of Cleves, 1539 by Hans Holbein the Younger. This portrait is on display at the Louvre in Paris and is believed to be the one sent to Henry VIII before he had met Anne in person.
“The capture of Ned Kelly” (28 June 1800); wood engraving, printed in The Illustrated Australian News on 3 July 1880: Julian Ashton, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
The noble 74-gun Royal Navy ship HMS Warrior fought through the Napoleonic Wars. From 1840, she was converted to a prison ship ‘hulk’ (image), stationed at Woolwich on the River Thames, before being broken up in 1857: See page for author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Ned Kelly is brought to the scaffold at the Melbourne Gaol, November 1880: Alfred May and Alfred Martin Ebsworth, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Adolf Hitler, Albert Speer and Arno Breker on the esplanade in front of the Palais de Chaillot, 23 June 1940. This was Hitler’s only visit to Paris during WWII: Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-H1216-0500-002 / CC-BY-SA, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE, via Wikimedia Commons.
A replica of the Gutenberg Press featured at the Featherbed Alley Printshop Museum, St George’s, Bermuda: Aodhdubh at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
Charlie Chaplin, the Little Tramp, 1919: Witzel L.A., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
Anne of Cleves, 1539 by Hans Holbein the Younger. This portrait is on display at the Louvre in Paris and is believed to be the one sent to Henry VIII before he had met Anne in person: Hans Holbein the Younger, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.