Editing Ned Kelly (section)

==Glenrowan affair==
===Murder of Aaron Sherritt===
{{Blockquote|text=... I look upon Ned Kelly as an extraordinary man; there is no man in the world like him, he is superhuman.|sign=[[Aaron Sherritt]] to Superintendent [[Francis Augustus Hare]]{{sfn|Jones|2010|p=}}}}
[[File:Aaron Sherritt 2.jpg|thumb|upright|Portrait of Sherritt showing his "larrikin heel" and wearing his hat in the Greta mob fashion with the chin strap resting under his nose]]
During the Kelly outbreak, police watch parties monitored Byrne's mother's house in the Woolshed Valley near [[Beechworth]]. The police used the house of her neighbour, [[Aaron Sherritt]], as a base of operations and kept watch from nearby caves at night. Sherritt, a former Greta Mob member and lifelong friend of Byrne, accepted police payments for camping with the watch parties and for informing on the gang.{{sfn|Jones|1995|pp=205-206}} Detective [[Michael Edward Ward|Michael Ward]] doubted Sherritt's value as an informer, suspecting he lied to the police to protect Byrne.{{sfn|Kelson|McQuilton|2001|p=128}}{{sfn|Jones|1995|p=205}}

In March 1879 Byrne's mother saw Sherritt with a police watch party and later publicly denounced him as a spy.{{Sfn|McQuilton|1987|p=122}}{{sfn|Jones|1995|p=206}} In the following months, Byrne and Ned sent invitations to Sherritt to join the gang, but when he continued his relationship with the police, the outlaws decided to murder him as a means to launch a grander plot, one that they boasted would "astonish not only the Australian colonies but the whole world".{{sfn|Farwell|1970|p=193}}

[[File:MurderOfSherritt.jpg|thumb|left|Sherritt's murder]]
On 26 June 1880, Dan and Byrne rode into the Woolshed Valley. That evening, they kidnapped a local gardener, Anton Wick, and took him to Sherritt's hut, which was occupied by Sherritt, his pregnant wife Ellen and her mother, and a four-man police watch party.{{Sfn|Kieza|2017|pp=390–92}}

Byrne forced Wick to knock on the back door and call out for Sherritt. When Sherritt answered the door, Byrne shot him in the throat and chest with a shotgun, killing him. Byrne and Dan then entered the hut while the policemen hid in one of the bedrooms. Byrne overheard them scrambling for their shotguns and demanded that they come out. When they did not respond he fired into the bedroom. He then sent Ellen into the bedroom to bring the police out, but they detained her in the room.{{Sfn|Jones|1995|pp=230–231}}

The outlaws left the hut, collected kindling, and loudly threatened to burn alive those inside. They stayed outside for approximately two hours, yelled more threats, then released Wick and rode away.{{sfn|Kieza|2017|pp=392–93}}{{Sfn|Morrissey|2015|pp=122–23}}

===Plot to wreck the police train and attack Benalla===
[[File:Ned Kelly attemps to derail train.jpg|thumb|upright|Kelly forces two railway workers to damage the track at [[Glenrowan, Victoria|Glenrowan]] in a plot to derail the police special train]]
The gang estimated that the policemen at Sherritt's would report his murder to Beechworth within a few hours, prompting a police special train to be sent up from Melbourne. They also surmised that the train would collect reinforcements in [[Benalla]] before continuing through [[Glenrowan, Victoria|Glenrowan]], a small town in the [[Warby Ranges]]. There, the gang planned to derail the train and shoot dead any survivors, then ride to an unpoliced Benalla where they would bomb the railway bridge over the [[Broken River (Victoria)|Broken River]], thereby isolating the town and giving them time to rob the banks, bomb the police barracks, torch the courthouse, free the gaol's prisoners, and generally sow chaos before returning to the bush.{{sfn|Innes|2008|p=105}}{{sfn|Dawson|2018|pp=57–58}}

While Byrne and Dan were in the Woolshed Valley, Ned and Hart forced two railway workers camped at Glenrowan to damage the track. The outlaws selected a sharp curve at an incline, where the train would be speeding at 60 mph before derailing into a deep gully. They told their captives they were going to "send the train and its occupants to hell".{{sfn|McMenomy|1984|p=152}}{{Sfn|McQuilton|1987|p=156}}

The bushrangers took over the [[Glenrowan railway station]], the stationmaster's home and Ann Jones' Glenrowan Inn, opposite the station. They used the hotel to hold the workers, passers-by, and other men; most of the women and children taken prisoner were held at the stationmaster's home. The other hotel in town, McDonnell's Railway Hotel, was used to stable the gang's stolen horses, one of which carried a keg of blasting powder and fuses.{{sfn|Jones|1995|p=205}} The packhorses also carried [[Armour of the Kelly gang|helmeted suits of bullet-repelling armour]], each made from stolen [[plough#Parts|plough mouldboards]] and weighing about {{convert|44|kg}}. Kelly conceived of the armour to protect the outlaws in shootouts with the police and planned to wear it when inspecting the train wreckage for survivors.{{Sfn|Morrissey|2015|p=121}}

===Siege and shootout===
[[File:The Kellys, the Glenrowan Quadrilles.jpg|thumb|left|A sketch by [[George Gordon McCrae]] shows the gang dancing with hostages.]]
By the afternoon of 27 June, the train still had not arrived, as the policemen in Sherritt's hut remained there until morning, for fear that the bushrangers were still outside.{{Sfn|McQuilton|1987|pp=156–57}} The outlaws meanwhile had gathered all sixty-two hostages in the Glenrowan Inn. Amongst them were sympathisers planted by the gang to help control the situation. As the hours passed without sight of the train, the gang plied the hostages with drink and organised music, singing, dancing and games.{{sfn|Jones|1995|p=206}} One hostage later testified, "[Ned] did not treat us badly—not at all".<ref name="seal2">{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/outlawlegendcult0000seal|last=Seal|first=Graham|year=1996|title=The Outlaw Legend: A Cultural Tradition in Britain, America and Australia|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-55740-5|page=159}}</ref> However, Ned terrorised a young hostage by threatening to shoot him.{{Sfn|Dawson|2018|p=44}}

Towards evening, Ned let 21 hostages he deemed trustworthy to leave, then captured Glenrowan's lone constable, Hugh Bracken, with the assistance of hostage [[Thomas Curnow]], a local schoolmaster who sought to gain the gang's trust in order to thwart their plans. Believing that Curnow was a sympathiser, Ned let him and his wife return home, but warned them to "go quietly to bed and not to dream too loud".{{Sfn|Jones|1995|pp=230–231}}{{Sfn|McQuilton|1987|p=158}}

[[File:Thomas Curnow.jpg|thumb|upright|Hostage [[Thomas Curnow]] thwarted the gang's plans.]]
News of Sherritt's death finally reached the outside world at midday 27 June, and at 9 pm, a police special train left Melbourne for Beechworth. In addition to its crew and four journalists, the train carried sub-Inspector O'Connor, his native police unit, wife and sister-in-law. They stopped at Benalla at 1:30 a.m. to take on Superintendent Hare and eight troopers, raising the passenger count to 27. Hare ordered a pilot engine to travel ahead of them as a lookout. One hour later, as the pilot approached Glenrowan, Curnow signalled it to stop and alerted the driver of the danger.{{sfn|Jones|1995|pp=243–45}}

Kelly had decided to free the hostages and was delivering them a final lecture on the police when the train pulled into Glenrowan. The outlaws donned their armour and prepared for a confrontation. Meanwhile, Bracken escaped to the railway station to explain the situation to Hare and O'Connor, who then led their men towards the hotel.{{sfn|Jones|1995|pp=245–49}} It was just after 3 a.m.{{Sfn|Dawson|2018|p=64}}

The outlaws lined up in the shadow of the hotel's porch and, when the police appeared about 30 m away in the moonlight, opened fire. About 150 shots were exchanged in the first volleys, during which the outlaws withdrew inside the hotel. Someone shouted that women and children were present, prompting a ceasefire. Hare was shot through the left wrist and, fainting from blood loss, returned to Benalla for treatment. Jimmy, an Aboriginal trooper, sustained a glancing head wound and rejoined the fight once bandaged.{{Sfn|Shaw|2012|p=}} Ned was wounded in the left hand, left arm and right foot. Byrne was shot in the calf. Several hostages were wounded by police fire into the weatherboard building, two fatally: thirteen-year-old John Jones and railway worker Martin Cherry.{{sfn|Jones|1995|pp=249–50}} A third fatality, hostage George Metcalf, was either killed by police crossfire or shot accidentally by Ned.{{sfn|Jones|1995|p=250}}{{Sfn|Macfarlane|2012|p=1}}{{Wide image|Glenrowan shootout.jpg|700px|The gang and police exchange gunfire. Drawing by [[Tom Carrington (illustrator)|Tom Carrington]], one of several journalists present during the battle.}}

During the lull in gunfire, a number of hostages, mostly women and children, escaped the hotel.{{sfn|Jones|1995|pp=251–52}}{{Sfn|Morrissey|2015|pp=234–35}} Kelly, bleeding heavily, retreated about 90 m into the bush behind the hotel, where police found his skull cap and rifle at around 3.30 a.m. Kelly was lying in the bush nearby.{{Sfn|Dawson|2018|pp=34–35}}

Police surrounded the hotel throughout the night, and the firing continued intermittently. At about 5:30 a.m., Byrne was fatally shot while drinking whiskey in the bar, his last words being a toast to the gang.{{Sfn|Dawson|2018|p=36}}{{Sfn|McQuilton|1987|p=161}} Over the next two hours, police reinforcements under Sergeant Steele and Superintendent Sadleir arrived from Wangaratta and Benalla, bringing the police contingent to about forty.{{Sfn|Dawson|2018|p=37}}{{Sfn|McQuilton|1987|pp=160, 163}}

===Last stand and capture===
[[File:A strange apparition Ned Kelly's last stand.jpg|thumb|left|"A strange apparition": when Kelly appeared out of the mist-shrouded bush, clad in armour, bewildered policemen took him to be a ghost, a [[bunyip]], and "[[Satan|Old Nick]] himself".]]
Seriously wounded, Kelly lay in the bush for most of the night.{{Sfn|Dawson|2018|p=35–38}} At dawn (about 7 a.m.), clad in armour and armed with three handguns, he rose out of the bush and attacked the police from their rear. Police returned fire as Kelly moved from tree to tree towards the hotel, at times staggering from his injuries, the weight of his armour and the impact of bullets on the plate iron, which he later described as "like blows from a man's fist". Due to these factors, Kelly had difficulty aiming, firing and reloading his guns.{{sfn|Jones|1995|pp=259–62, 382}}

[[File:Ned Kelly capture.jpg|thumb|Sergeant Steele and railway guard Dowsett capture Kelly.]]
Eyewitnesses struggled to identify the figure moving in the dim misty light and, astonished as it withstood bullets, variously called it a ghost, a [[bunyip]], and the devil.{{sfn|Kieza|2017|pp=412–13}} Journalist [[Tom Carrington (illustrator)|Tom Carrington]] wrote:{{sfn|Kieza|2017|p=414}}
{{blockquote|With the steam rising from the ground, it looked for all the world like the [[ghost (Hamlet)|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.}}

The gun battle with Kelly lasted around 15 minutes with Dan and Hart providing covering fire from the hotel.{{Sfn|Morrissey|2015|p=137}} It ended when Steele brought down Ned with two shotgun blasts to his unprotected legs and thighs. Ned was disarmed and divested of his armour by the police while Dan and Hart continued firing on them. Dan was wounded by return fire, and Ned was carried to the railway station, where a doctor attended to him.{{Sfn|Kieza|2017|p=414–18}} He was later found to have twenty-eight wounds, including serious gunshot wounds to his left elbow and right foot, several flesh wounds caused by gunshots, and cuts and abrasions from bullets striking his armour,{{sfn|Jones|1995|p=383}}{{Sfn|Macfarlane|2012|pp=25–26}} which showed a total of 18 bullet marks, including five in the helmet.{{sfn|Cormick|2014|p=150}}

[[File:ned kelly armour library.JPG|thumb|upright|Kelly's armour on display at [[State Library Victoria]]. The helmet, breastplate, backplate and shoulder plates show 18 bullet marks. Also on display are Kelly's [[Snider Enfield]] rifle and one of his boots.]]
In the meantime, the siege continued. Around 10 a.m., a ceasefire was called and the remaining thirty hostages left the hotel. They were ordered to lie down as police checked for any outlaws among them. Two of the hostages were arrested for being known Kelly sympathisers.{{sfn|Jones|1995|p=265}}

===Fire and aftermath===
[[File:JonesHotel.jpeg|left|thumb|Ruins of Jones's Hotel after the fire]]
[[File:Group_at_the_Kelly_Tree.jpg|thumb|left|Police and Aboriginal trackers pose in front of the "Kelly Tree", the fallen [[Eucalyptus|gum tree]] where Kelly was captured]]
By the afternoon of 28 June, some 600 spectators had gathered at Glenrowan, and Dan and Hart had ceased shooting. Forbidding his men from storming the hotel, Sadleir ordered a cannon from Melbourne to blast out the outlaws, then decided to burn them out instead. At 2.50 p.m, Senior Constable Charles Johnson, under cover of police fire, set the hotel alight.{{Sfn|McQuilton|1987|p=162}}

Passing through the area, Catholic priest [[Matthew Gibney]] halted his travels to administer the [[last rites]] to Ned, then entered the burning hotel in an attempt to rescue anyone inside. He found the bodies of Byrne, Dan and Hart. The causes of Dan and Hart's deaths remain a mystery.{{sfn|McMenomy|1984|p=163}} Police retrieved Byrne's body and rescued the mortally wounded Martin Cherry. After the fire died out at 4 p.m., the police recovered the badly burnt bodies of Dan and Hart.{{Sfn|McQuilton|1987|pp=162–63}}

Other hostages wounded during the shootout were Michael Reardon and his baby sister Bridget (who was grazed by a bullet),{{Sfn|Macfarlane|2012|p=23}}{{Sfn|Morrissey|2015|pp=134, 138}} and Jones' sister Jane, who received a head wound from a stray bullet and later died from a lung infection that her mother believed was hastened by the injury.{{sfn|Kelson|McQuilton|2001|p=147}}

Following the siege, Kelly was transported to Benalla, where doctors determined that his injuries were non-fatal. Outside the lockup where Kelly was kept, Byrne's body was strung up and photographed, with casts taken of his head and limbs for a [[wax museum|waxwork]], later exhibited in Melbourne.<ref>{{cite book |last=Gilmour |first=Joanna |author-link= |date=2015 |title=Sideshow Alley: Infamy, the Macabre & the Portrait |url= |location= |publisher=National Portrait Gallery |pages=110, 119, 132 |isbn= 9780975103067}}</ref> Sympathisers asked for his body, but the police arranged a hasty inquiry and burial in an unmarked grave in Benalla Cemetery. Dan and Hart's charred remains were buried by their families in unmarked graves in Greta Cemetery.{{sfn|Jones|1995|pp=274, 280, 282}} Kelly recuperated at [[Old Melbourne Gaol|Melbourne Gaol]] hospital, and four weeks after his capture, it was arranged that he be transferred to Beechworth for his committal hearing.{{Sfn|Castles|2005|pp=130–132}}