It's the winter of 1880
and in the middle of the night John Stanistreet
the stationmaster at the remote South Australian settlement of Glenrowan
gets woken by a knock at the door.
Jumping out of bed and dressing quickly the door is burst open.
Shouting out he asks,
"What’s that for, who are you?"
The reply was, "I am Ned Kelly".
In the doorway he stood,
an imposing figure, clad in a long overcoat.
Barging in Kelly pushed the station master back into the bedroom
where his wife and children were still in the bed.
Kelly ordered John to finish dressing and told him,
"You have to come with me and take up the rails.
There’s a special train coming!"
Having earlier shot three policemen
Ned Kelly and his gang have been storming the area
by robbing banks and train stations wearing bush armor.
The armor is crudely fashioned from plow and other lumps of metal.
The South Australian police have tracked him down using aboriginal trackers
who know the country even better than Kelly and his gang.
Now a large group of police and trackers are on a train
on their way to Glenrowan to get their man.
Kelly knows that unless he stops the trackers
the police will always be on to him and the three others in his gang.
Kelly’s plan is to pull up the train tracks near a deep precipice
and have the train fall to certain disaster.
Dragging the station master from his house he sets to work,
they dig at the tracks and set their trap.
With some time before the train arrives,
the gang gather up the small population of Glenrowan
and take them hostage at the local hotel.
Kelly’s gang are known for their good humor
and is somewhat of a local folk hero.
When he robs the banks he burns the records
making it difficult for them to reclaim their loans.
When he robs a bar he gives free beer to all the locals.
But the police are finally catching up with him
and Ned and his gang are getting desperate.
Despite his reputation,
in the hotel the hostages and the stationmaster are told in no uncertain terms
that if they try to signal the oncoming train
they will be shot.
Ned has miscalculated the arrival of the train
and a long wait sets in.
So Kelly and his gang decide to entertain themselves
and their hostages while they wait.
A teacher by the name of Thomas Kernow
gave an account of what happened.
“Dan Kelly, Ned’s brother, a short time after I entered the hotel,
asked me to have a drink with him and I drank with him at the bar.
About 3 o’clock in the afternoon
Ned and Dan Kelly called several of the prisoners
to engage in jumping with the hop-step and jump.
Ned Kelly joined in with them
and used a revolver in each hand as weights.”
The gang engaged in drinking and insisted music be played,
the people dance and songs be sung.
Some of which were about the Kelly gang.
Some of the gang overindulged themselves,
but Ned stayed sober.
With the time dragging on,
the teacher convinced the Kelly gang that his wife was ill
and he had to take her home.
Amazingly the gang allowed them to leave,
with the warning that they would be regularly checked upon.
And if he were to try and warn the train
that they would be silenced.
Permanently.
Once home, the teacher was racked by his conscience.
He later said,
“I could not rest,
and felt I must perform what was clearly my duty.
I heard the train coming in the distance
as I was harnessing the horse and I immediately caught up the candle, scarf and matches
and ran down the line to meet the train.
I ran on until I got to where those in the train
would be able to see the danger signal for some distance.
I then lit the candle and held it behind the red scarf.”
The guard on the train saw the signal and shouted out,
“What's the matter?”
The teacher shouted back,
“The Kellys!”
The driver slammed on the brakes
and the train screeched along the track.
At the last second, the train stopped just in time.
The police, the trackers and several journalists disembarked from the train.
The police were told many times
that the Kelly gang were wearing armor,
but they dismissed it as nonsense
maybe the overactive imaginations of the settlers or a joke.
The police set up their positions.
Surrounding the hotel, and a siege began.
Reporting on the siege, the Australasian Sketcher said,
“The first brush was exceedingly hot.
The police and the gang blazed away at each other in the darkness furiously.
There was nothing but a succession of flashes and reports.
The pinging of bullets in the air
and the shrieks of the women prisoners in the hotel.”
The melee continued throughout the night
but the gang were completely outnumbered.
In the early morning Ned decided his best course of action was to try and escape
before it got too light.
He was spotted by a policeman called Sargeant Steele.
Steele had known the Kelly gang for years
and they were bitter enemies.
Steele said,
“It was then breaking day.
I looked round and saw a man stalking down.
I thought he was a blackfellow wrapped in a blanket
and called on the others to be careful.
I then saw him present a revolver and fire at a policeman.
The police returned fire,
but to the surprise and incredulity of the police,
the bullets had no effect.
One shouted, “He’s a madman!”
Another “He’s the devil!”
and “He’s the bunyip!”
Kelly began laughing.
and shouted to his gang in the hotel to restart the fight.
He taunted the police and shouted to his gang in the hotel to restart the fight.
and shouted to his gang in the hotel to restart the fight.
This carried on for 10 more minutes.
A journalist wrote,
”With the steam rising from the ground,
it looked for all the world like the ghost of Hamlet's father
with no head, only a very long thick neck.
It was the most extraordinary sight I ever saw or read of in my life,
and I felt fairly spellbound with wonder,
and I could not stir or speak.”
However Sergeant Steele was a cooler head.
He later said,
“I could see the bullets hitting and staggering him for a moment.
They had no further effect.
I therefore thought he had armor on,
and determined to have a close shot at him.”
Steele aimed at Ned’s unprotected legs
and caught him with 2 shots.
Steeles account continued,
“We were in the open and he fell and cried,
'I'm done, I'm done.'
I ran up to him then,
and he turned savagely and tried to shoot me,
but I pushed the revolver down.
I had a great scuffle with him,
but others ran up and his shots had no effect.
We found a bag of ammunition,
and when we divested him of his armor
we found that he was weak from loss of blood.
I was strained in the scuffle,
but we got our man."
Found guilty and sentenced, Kelly’s last words were
"Ah, well, I suppose it has come to this."
Kelly has since become an Australian folk hero,
his armor still survives
and can still be seen today at the State Library of Victoria.
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