Editing Ned Kelly (section)

==Rise to notoriety==
===Bushranging with Harry Power===
{{Blockquote|text=I'm a bushranger.
|source=The earliest known words attributed to Kelly in public record, as reported by Chinese hawker Ah Fook, 1869.{{Sfn|Molony|2001|p=37}}
}}
[[File:Bushranger Harry Power.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Harry Power]] has been described as Kelly's bushranging "mentor".]]
In 1869, 14-year-old Kelly met Irish-born [[Harry Power]] (alias of Henry Johnson), a transported convict who turned to bushranging in north-eastern Victoria after escaping Melbourne's [[HM Prison Pentridge|Pentridge Prison]]. The Kellys were Power sympathisers, and by May 1869 Ned had become his bushranging protégé. That month, they attempted to steal horses from the [[Mansfield, Victoria|Mansfield]] property of [[Squatting (Australian history)|squatter]] John Rowe as part of a plan to rob the [[Woods Point, Victoria|Woods Point]]–Mansfield gold escort. They abandoned the idea after Rowe shot at them, and Kelly temporarily broke off his association with Power.{{sfn|Kieza|2017|pp=85–86}}

Kelly's first brush with the law occurred in October 1869. A Chinese hawker named Ah Fook said that as he passed the Kelly family home, Ned brandished a long stick, declared himself a bushranger and robbed him of 10 shillings. Kelly, arrested and charged with [[highway robbery]], claimed in court that Fook had abused him and his sister Annie in a dispute over the hawker's request for a drink of water. Family witnesses backed Ned and the charge was dismissed.{{sfn|Jones|1995|pp=37-39}}

Kelly and Power reconciled in March 1870 and, over the next month, committed a series of armed robberies. By the end of April, the press had named Kelly as Power's young accomplice, and a few days later he was captured by police and confined to [[HM Prison Beechworth|Beechworth Gaol]]. Kelly fronted court on three robbery charges, with the victims in each case failing to identify him. On the third charge, Superintendents Nicolas and [[Francis Augustus Hare|Hare]] insisted Kelly be tried, citing his resemblance to the suspect. After a month in custody, Kelly was released due to insufficient evidence. The Kellys allegedly intimidated witnesses into withholding testimony. Another factor in the lack of identification may have been that Power's accomplice was described as a "[[Half-caste#Australia|half-caste]]", but the police believed this to be the result of Kelly going unwashed.{{sfn|Jones|1995|pp=41-52}}

[[File:Harry Power capture.jpg|thumb|upright|Power's capture. Kelly was accused of informing on the bushranger.]]
Power often camped at Glenmore Station on the [[King River (Victoria)|King River]], owned by Kelly's maternal grandfather, James Quinn. In June 1870, while resting in a mountainside [[humpy|gunyah]] (bark shelter) that overlooked the property, Power was captured and arrested by police. Word soon spread that Kelly had informed on him. Kelly denied the rumour, and in the only surviving [[s:Ned Kelly Letter to Sgt. James Babington|letter]] known to bear his handwriting, he pleads with Sergeant James Babington of [[Kyneton, Victoria|Kyneton]] for help, saying that "everyone looks on me like a black snake". The informant turned out to be Kelly's uncle, Jack Lloyd, who received £500 for his assistance.{{sfn|Jones|1995|pp=51–56}} However, Kelly had also given information which led to Power's capture, possibly in exchange for having the charges against him dropped. Power always maintained that Kelly betrayed him.{{Sfn|Macfarlane|2012|pp=35–37}}

Reporting on Power's criminal career, the ''[[Benalla Ensign]]'' wrote:

{{blockquote|The effect of his example has already been to draw one young fellow into the open vortex of crime, and unless his career is speedily cut short, young Kelly will blossom into a declared enemy of society.{{sfn|Jones|1995|p=46}}}}

===Horse theft, assault and imprisonment===
[[File:Ned Kelly mugshot.jpg|thumb|left|upright|Mugshot of Kelly, aged 15]]
In October 1870, a hawker, Jeremiah McCormack, accused a friend of the Kellys, Ben Gould, of stealing his horse. In response, Gould sent an indecent note and a parcel of calves' testicles to McCormack's wife, which Kelly helped deliver. When McCormack later confronted Kelly over his role, Kelly punched him and was arrested for both the note and the assault, receiving three months’ hard labor for each charge.{{Sfn|Corfield|2003|p=265}}

Kelly was released from Beechworth Gaol on 27 March 1871, five weeks early, and returned to Greta. Shortly after, horse-breaker Isaiah "Wild" Wright rode into town on a horse he supposedly borrowed. Later that night, the horse went missing. While Wright was away in search of the horse, Kelly found it and took it to [[Wangaratta]], where he stayed for four days. On 20 April, while Kelly was riding back into Greta, Constable Edward Hall tried to arrest him on the suspicion that the horse was stolen. Kelly resisted and overpowered Hall, despite the constable's attempts to shoot him. Kelly was eventually subdued with the help of bystanders, and Hall [[Pistol-whipping|pistol-whipped]] him until his head became "a mass of raw and bleeding flesh".{{sfn|FitzSimons|2013|pp=81–82}} Initially charged with horse stealing, the charge was downgraded to "feloniously receiving a horse", resulting in a three-year sentence. Wright received eighteen months for his part.{{Sfn|Corfield|2003|p=507}}

[[File:Ned Kelly boxing.jpg|thumb|upright|Kelly in boxing attire, 1874]]
Kelly served his sentence at Beechworth Gaol and Pentridge Prison, then aboard the prison hulk ''Sacramento'', off [[Williamstown, Victoria|Williamstown]]. He was freed on 2 February 1874, six months early for good behaviour, and returned to Greta. According to one possibly apocryphal story, Kelly, to settle the score with Wright over the horse, fought and beat him in a [[bare-knuckle boxing]] match.{{sfn|Jones|2010|p=}} A photograph of Kelly in a boxing pose is commonly linked to the match. Regardless of the story's veracity, Wright became a known Kelly sympathiser.{{sfn|Kieza|2017|p=105}}

Over the next few years, Kelly worked at sawmills and spent periods in [[New South Wales]], leading what he called the life of a "rambling gambler".{{Sfn|Jones|2010|p=507}} During this time, his mother married an American, George King.{{Sfn|Corfield|2003|pp=265–66}} In early 1877, Ned joined King in an organised horse theft operation. Ned later claimed that the group stole 280 horses.{{Sfn|Corfield|2003|p=266}} Its membership overlapped with that of the Greta Mob, a bush [[larrikin]] gang known for their distinctive "flash" attire. Apart from Ned, the gang included his brother [[Dan Kelly (bushranger)|Dan]], cousins Jack and [[Tom Lloyd (bushranger)|Tom Lloyd]], and [[Joe Byrne]], [[Steve Hart]] and [[Aaron Sherritt]].{{Sfn|Corfield|2003|p=204}}

On 18 September 1877, Kelly was arrested in [[Benalla]] for riding over a footpath while drunk. The following day he brawled with four policemen who were escorting him to court, including a friend of the Kellys, Constable Alexander Fitzpatrick. Another constable involved, Thomas Lonigan, supposedly grabbed Kelly's testicles during the fraccas; legend has it that Kelly vowed, "Well Lonigan, I never shot a man yet; but if I ever do...you will be the first!" Kelly was fined and released.{{Sfn|Jones|1995|pp=98–100}}

In August 1877, Kelly and King sold six horses they had stolen from pastoralist James Whitty to William Baumgarten, a horse dealer in [[Barnawartha]]. On 10 November, Baumgarten was arrested for selling the horses. Warrants for Ned and Dan's arrest for the theft were sworn in March and April 1878. King disappeared around this time.{{Sfn|Jones|2010|pp=94–106|ps=. [1995 edition]}}