AUSTRALIAN BUSHRANGERS

The history of Australian Bushranging begins with Governor Phillips and with the convicts of the First Fleet in 1788.

Governor Phillips was very free with the lash and according to the harsh laws and customs of the time, he had to be, because amongst his 759 convicts were some of the most desperate and defiant ruffians ever to come from the hulks and gaols of Britain. I guess you will remember the stories about the hulks in England for we were taught about them at school.

            The first bushranger was John (Black) Caesar. He was driven to crime by an insatiable appetite - today we would call him a gourmand. Judge Advocate David Collins said he was the best worker in the Colony but he was so ravenous that he ate 2 days' rations in 1 day. To keep that up he stole from others or robbed the gardens. This was a flogging offence which made him bitter so he stole a musket and went bush before the Colony was 2 years old. Soon other men escaped and joined him in what was Australia's first gang of bushrangers. Flogging wasn't very nice - James Barry was sentenced to 1000 lashes for breaking into a settler's home. He received 270 of those in 1 day.Governor King was troubled by bushrangers so he offered free pardons, passages home, free convict labor, 20 gallons of rum, to anyone, bond or free, who trapped the outlaws, William Knight, James Warwick and Thomas Thrush. William Knight even had the effrontery to raid the streets of Sydney to try to kidnap a wife.   Three notorious bushrangers borrowed the names of famous British Statesmen, calling themselves Fox, Pitt and Burke. These men finally gave up bushranging. They rode inland, built a hut, cultivated land, built corrals to keep their cows and horses and finally persuaded 3 women convicts to desert their masters to live with them. They would have lived in idyllic bliss if they had not stolen a dog on their last raid. The dog eventually found its way home so police, with black-trackers and the dog, found the bushrangers hideout. Fox, Pitt and Burke were all hanged.The crossing of the Blue Mountains in 1813 gave the bushrangers wider scope and a greater chance of freedom. In 1822 Governor Sir Thomas Brisbane hanged 34 men for bushranging.

            By Governor Darling's time in 1826, bushranging had become so daring that they robbed along Parramatta Road to the very gates of Sydney. At this time a number of police were in league with the bushrangers, so too, were some of the farmers. The outlaws, however, met their match in Nicholas Rossi who was said to be a secret agent who gave King George IV some of the evidence on which he (the King) charged his wife, Caroline, with adultery. Rossi was sent out to be Sydney's chief of police. He was fearless and alert. He sacked crooks from the police force then set out to smash the gangs. Rossi lured the gang leaders into a fight, captured four of the biggest desperados and had them hanged in George Street, lining up the farmers who supplied them with food and ammunitions to watch their dying struggles. He then sent the farmers in irons to Norfolk Island. If you know anything about Norfolk Island in those days, you will remember the desperate conditions under which the prisoners lived. It is recorded that it was worse than Port Arthur in Tasmania.

            "Bold" Jack Donahoe was a high-spirited young Irishman transported for life when only 16 years old. He took to the bush in 1827, was untimely captured with 2 mates and all three were sentenced to death. Donahoe escaped but his partners, Smith and Kilroy, went to the gallows. Smith's rope broke and he fell to the ground and watched in terror as his mate kicked his life out. The Rev. William Cowper, who attended more than 300 in their last moments on the gallows, pleaded for mercy but Governor Darling wouldn't budge. They got a stronger rope and there was no mistake this time. The newspaper, "The Gazette", complained saying, "This was the second or third accident of this type in the last 2 years", adding that bale rope wasn't strong enough and that they should get a better quality rope in future.Donahoe secured more partners and concentrated on the gentry, forcing their victims to change clothes with them. They were particularly hard on a Captain Lethbridge whom they stripped of coat, waistcoat, trousers, hat, boots and shirt, and left him shivering in his underwear. Donahoe and his gang were finally caught in a pitched battle with police and he was shot in the head and neck. He died. A pipe-maker was allowed to make a cast of his head showing the bullet wound, and from this he made clay pipes, the bowl being a reduced facsimile of the head. The song, "Bold Jack Donahoe" had such an evil influence on the Colony that its singing in public houses was banned in pain of losing one's hotel licence.In 1830 bushranging became so prevalent in New South Wales that a special Bushranging Act was passed whereby anyone thought to be carrying arms could be searched and if arms were found, summarily seized. With general search warrants police could enter or break into any house by day or night and arrest the inmates if firearms were found. To cap this, the Act decreed that robbers or housebreakers condemned to die were to be hanged within 3 days, which in many cases precluded any chance of appeal or pleas for mercy from the Governor.

            It was in 1830 that Ralph Entwistle and another bullock driver bathed in the nude in the Macquarie River, when just by chance, Governor Ralph Darling passed by. Lieut Evenden decided that the Governor had been affronted and had the two men flogged. As a result Entwistle turned bushranger. When finally caught, Entwistle and nine other members of the gang were hanged three days after the trial. Entwistle told the crowd that his mother had told him he would die with his boots on. "She was wrong", he said as he kicked off his boots into the crowd.Two ruffians were sentenced to be hanged, one named Tattersdale was terrified on the gallows but his mate, Jenkins, tried to cheer him up by saying, "Come on, lad, none of that crying, we'll both be right in a couple of minutes." John Lynch was described as a monster of piety who said he always sought God's guidance before committing the murders which brought him to justice and the gallows in 1842, at the early age of 29 years. Lynch was a callous killer - he would feign friendship and then kill. There were 10 killings listed to him. A farmer named Mulligan was felled with an axe, then he murdered the man's son with a back-hand swipe with an axe whilst pretending to help the lad with some wood chopping. The wife was next confronted and she realised that she was facing a murderous madman. He confessed, "I gave her my foot which staggered her and then brought her down." Lynch returned to the house, gave Mulligan's 10-year old daughter 10 minutes to say her prayers then murdered her with the axe. His skull is still preserved in the Australian Museum in Sydney. Some years ago I called there to see it but was told the skull has been in a basement store now for many years.

            There is so much more that could be said about bushrangers in Sydney and, of course, the stories of bushranging in Tasmania are particularly vicious. However I should say something about our own Victorian bushrangers.When the first gold was found at Clunes in 1851, thousands of adventurers and a lot of ruffians rushed to the goldfields. Bushrangers held up miners and traders returning from the goldfields. Richard Burgess, son of an English Guards officer, committed his first murder in 1852 when a trader named Hewitt recognised him and threatened exposure. Burgess shot Hewitt through the head and buried him in a creek. After a succession of murders, Burgess was finally caught and sentenced to be hanged in 1866. He spent his last days writing a confession at the same time complaining that the hammering by carpenters erecting the gallows was interrupting his train of thought.

            Probably the most notorious of Victorian bushrangers and the man who had the greatest effect in reforming the penal system was Francis (Frank) McNeil McCallum, alais Captain Melville. Melville was one of life's unfortunates. First convicted for theft when only 12 years, of age, before reaching 15 years he was transported to the boys reformatory at dreaded Port Arthur. His constant appearances in Court and his lucid explanations of the conditions in the hulks and prisons ultimately made the authorities look into those conditions and improve the lot of those unfortunates. Whilst at Port Arthur, Melville defied the masters who set out to break his spirit. He had many spells in solitary on bread and water. He was flogged on the back with the "cat" and on the buttocks with the "birch". When he finally received his ticket-of-leave in 1849, he was bitter and vengeful. His first thought was to go gold digging but decided it was easier to rob others of it, so for 12 months he was the terror of the roads between the goldfields and Melbourne. He and a companion named Roberts, robbed some prospectors of A33 and went to Geelong where they booked into a hotel, drank too much wine, met some lovely young ladies, and in a fit of drunken bravado, Melville confided to them that he was the famous Captain Melville. One of the girls went to get another bottle to celebrate and drink to his health but instead, remembering that there was a reward of f100 on his head, went to the police. Melville suddenly realised what was happening but too late - he was captured, sentenced to 32 years and sent to the prison hulk "President". He was always in trouble with the warders and on one occasion he was bound in chains in such a manner that he could only stand or kneel. The Melbourne '"Argus" reported "that Melville has said he intends leaving his head to the Phrenological Society and the sooner the head of this monster, deprived of the body, is in the hands of the Institute the better it will be for Society." The end came on 11th August 1857 when Melville was found dead in his cell with a spotted scarf wound tightly around his throat. The coroner was certain it was suicide but most critics believed enemies in gaol had put an end to the man whose spirit they could not break.

            Our most famous bushranger, of course, was Ned Kelly. He was also our last. Born in a slab hut at Beveridge, about 40 kilometers from Melbourne in June 1855, he was the third child, but the first son, of Ellen & John Kelly. Ned's father had been transported to Australia from England for stealing 2 pigs. John Kelly served 7 years in prison in Tasmania then came to Melbourne where he met Ellen Quinn whose parents didn't approve of the match so Ellen & John eloped and married in Melbourne afterwards returning to Beveridge. By the year 1860, "Old Jim" Quinn, Ned's grandfather, was patriach of nearly 30 unruly young first-generation Australians. This was the background of our most famous bushranger and whilst many people in those days considered he was a knight in shining armour, Ned Kelly was, in fact, a bushranger and brought the law on his own head.Unfortunately anybody connected with Ned Kelly felt the weight of the law and if robberies were committed the police brought in either a Kelly or a Quinn. This outraged Ned who set out to revenge the persecution he thought was being pursued against his family. Because with the money he stole he helped so many people who were struggling, these people obstructed the police in any enquiries as to his whereabouts. The story of his final shoot-out with the police and his eventual capture and hanging was reported in the Melbourne "Argus"' at that time. Ned Kelly was hanged on 11^th November 1880.

            Today the do-gooders have more thought for the criminal than they have for the victim. This is not new. The same happened when Ned Kelly was to be hanged. However the "Argus' was quite outspoken about these "do-gooders" and wrote a lengthy article condemning them. Here is an extract: "A movement, at once supremely ridiculous and disgraceful to all connected with it, has been recently made here in favour of the condemned bushranger, Edward Kelly, who, nevertheless, was hanged yesterday in the precincts of the Melbourne Gaol. A greater monster in human shape than this Kelly was, perhaps, never born into this world. After a longer career of unpunished crime than any other man known to our criminal records has ever run - a career in which he committed several murders in cold blood - he was at last run to earth, but not before he was outlawed nor until a very large reward was offered by the Government for his capture. Forthwith there commenced an agitation having for its objective the saving of this man's life. The agitators were, of course, principally amongst the lowest and most ignorant class; but some few sympathisers were to be found (principally amongst women) belonging socially to a class above the lowest. It was suggested by one deputation that if Miss Kelly 'went down on her knees and begged for mercy, perhaps that might have some effect'. The Governor, of course, had to bear as well as he could with this foolery. Some of these petitioners doubtless regarded the criminal as a sort of hero 'persecuted by the police'. These very persons would probably with their own hands have lynched Kelly could they have taken him in the act of shooting one of his defenceless victims in cold blood. The widows and orphans the ruffian has made are as utterly left out of account as if they did not exist. The newspaper report concludes with the comment that Kelly was a Roman Catholic and in his last moments received absolution from a priest.

            In "The Herald-Sun" of 3rd January 1994 it was reported that the Chief Justice of Victoria, Mr. John Phillips believes that the trial which sent Ned Kelly to the gallows was a farce. Mr. Phillips said that Ned Kelly had an incompetent barrister, the judge rushed the case, and a key witness gave dubious evidence against Kelly. Expert historians support Mr. Phillips saying that Kelly did not get a fair trial for the murder of police trooper Thomas Lonigan at Stringy Bark Creek in October 1878. The Chief Justice said that Kelly was forced to hire "the most inexperienced barrister in the Colony", Henry Bindon, because the judge, Sir Redmond Barry, refused to adjourn the trial so that the family could raise more money to get a better lawyer. Melbourne historian, Mr. Ian Jones, who wrote and produced the Ned Kelly television series "The Last Outlaw" agreed with Mr. Phillips.

            The Chief Justice concludes: "It is not my purpose to suggest Kelly was an innocent man. The case against him was a very strong one. But every accused person has, and had in 1880, the right to a trial according to law. Such persons are also entitled to an expectation that their defense whatever its shortcomings, is sufficiently put to the court. The trial of Ned Kelly fails to meet either of these ideals."

      Ned Kelly            Sergeant Kennedy  Justice Barry

The killings: Trooper Lonigan already lies dead as Ned Kelly calls on Sergeant Kennedy to stop.

In its history, The Salvation Army has touched a number of remarkable people, even to having contact with the Kelly’s. In 1888 the Army opened fire on Bourke and officers travelling in the outback reported on a trip to Greta, Victoria as follows:

"Held a meeting at Brother King's sawmill under canvas . . . rain came down and collection plate filled with water while offering was taken up. As we came home we called at the former abode of Ned Kelly, the bushranger. We saw his mother. Poor old soul! Sorrow seemed depicted on her face. We gave her some War Cry’s and Full Salvations. Before we left she knelt down with us and as one of the lasses prayed the dear woman took our hand."

The story ended there but another very interesting story revolves around Jack Bradshaw, the last of the Kelly gang. Bradshaw was buried in Sydney in December 1936 at the age of 90 years. Staff-Captain Olive Saunders of The Salvation Army met Bradshaw in hospital about two years prior to his death and her ministry brought him in touch with his Maker. The Staff Captain said, "We who are seeking to bring men and women to God can always tell when that life-changing relationship is brought about." Bradshaw's own words were, "I am a happy man now, I have found God."

We have looked at a few notable bushrangers, it is difficult to cover all of them but here are some briefs about a few more of them.

            BEN HALL probably the greatest of all Australian bushrangers raided Bathurst, occupied Canowindra and staged a three-day marathon spree. fie besieged a magistrate in his house and held him to ransom. In the end he died with 15 bullets in his body.

            JOHNNY GILBERT was Ben Hall’s strong-arm man. He murdered Police-Sergeant Parry and was ultimately cornered and shot while heroically fighting off the police to allow his comrade, John Dunn to escape.

            JOHN DUNN was eventually brought down with a bullet in the groin in a battle with the police. He died on the gallows at Darlinghurst in 1866.

            CAPTAIN THUNDERBOLT (Frederick Ward) whose love for the saffron-haired half-caste, Yellow long, is the greatest romance of Australian bush-ranging. She watched for him, slaughtered cattle for him when he was ill, and taught him his theme song: "Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still." Thunderbolt was cornered in a lagoon by Constable Walker who shot him through the lungs, dragged him to shore, and left him in a pool of blood until the next morning.

            "MAD" DON MORGAN was shot in the back. Ghouls scalped the beard from his face to make a tobacco pouch. His head was sent to a Melbourne scientist to "advance the cause of science." It was too far gone to be of any help.

            CAPTAIN MOONLIGHT alais ANDREW GEORGE SCOTT, was the son of an Irish clergyman. He, and his gang, held up Wantabadgery Station and retreated in a running battle to a slab hut. One trooper and two of the bushrangers were mortally wounded before the rest surrendered. At the trial, Captain Moonlight made such an impassioned appeal for his accomplices that two of them were reprieved. Moonlight and Hogan were hanged.

            JIMMY GOVERNOR was a red-headed half-caste and in a mad rampage killed nine people because his white neighbours spurned the white girl he had married.

            NED KELLY was convicted at 16 years of age. Other members were Dan Kelly a younger brother, Steve Hart Dan's best friend, Joe Byrne the man Ned trusted and respected above any other. Aaron Sherritt a friend of Joe Byrne, betrayed the Kellys' and paid with his life. It is reported that Joe Byrne shot him. Jack Bradshaw of whom I spoke earlier doesn't appear in any of the records relating to the total gang.

In a series of books called "Young Australia Series" a volume is devoted to Ned Kelly, the writer being Frank Clunes.

Throughout those troublous times many ballads were written about bushrangers. Here are some of those verses:

“There was a wild colonial boy, Jack Donahoe by name,

Of poor but honest parents, he was born in Castlemaine.He was his father': dearest hope, his mother's pride and joy,

0' fondly did his parents love the wild colonial boy.

Then come away my hearties, we'll roam the hills so high,

 Together we will plunder, together we will die,

We'll cross the wild Blue Mountains and scour the Bathurst plains,

For we scorn to live in slavery, bound down with iron chains."

John McGuire wrote four stanzas on the death of Ben Hall called "The Streets of Forbes".

  "Bill Dargen, he was chosen to shoot the outlaw dead,

The troopers fired madly and filled him full of lead.

They threw him on his horse and strapped him like a swag,

Then led him through the streets of Forbes to show the prize they had.”

It really is incredible to read the number of poems about bushrangers, however, I will finish with a verse about Ned Kelly and his gang.

“Oh, Paddy dear, and did you hear

The news that's going around?

On the head of bold Ned Kelly

They have placed two thousand pound.

And on Steve Hart, Joe Byrne and Dan

            Two thousand more they'd give,

But if the price were doubled, boys,

The Kelly Gang would live.”

The truth of those words is apparent today for the story of the Kelly Gang has become a part of Australian folk-lore.

The Sun, Thursday, October 13, 1988

By BRIAN WALSH

THE killing of two young constables at South Yarra yesterday was the worst attack on Victorian police since Ned Kelly killed three troopers at Stringybark Creek in 1878, Deputy Commissioner (Operations) John Frame said yesterday.

            Mr Frame said the fatal shooting of troopers Michael Kennedy, Michael Scanlon and Thomas Lonigan by the notorious bushranger was the only other multiple murder in the state's police history.

            The three were shot on October 25, 1878 after heading out from Mansfield in search of the Kelly gang.

            Mr Frame said he felt sick when he was phoned yesterday to be told of the South Yarra shootings.

            He said police officers throughout the state regarded the deaths of constables Steven Tynan and Damian Eyre as equivalent to losing a member of the family. "Although we have 9500 police in the organisation, it's still like a family and I guess it's like losing a couple out of the family," he said. Both constables were dedicated young men, committed to the police force, Mr Frame said. And both had held a lifelong ambition to join the police. "They were both held in high regard and from the conversations I have had with their immediate supervisors, both of the lads were dedicated men and both dedicated to the force," he said.

            Assistant Commissioner (Crime) Vaughan Werner said: "Certainly as far as the Victoria Police is concerned, it is one of the most dastardly crimes which has been committed against the force as such. "I don't only say that from the force point of view, but I say that from the force being the pillar of law and order as far as the community is concerned."

HERALD-SUN NEWS PICTORIAL

Monday 3rd January 1994

Ned Kelly’s trial unfair — judge

THE trial that sent Ned Kelly to the gallows was a farce, according to the Chief Justice of Victoria, Mr John Phillips.

            Mr Phillips said Australia's notorious bushranger had an incompetent barrister, the judge rushed the case, and a key witness gave dubious evidence against Kelly.

            Expert historians yesterday supported Mr Phillips, saying Kelly did not get a fair trial for the murder of police trooper Thomas Lonigan at Stringy Bark Creek in October, 1878.

Mr Phillips recently said in a speech, which

is reproduced today, that Kelly was forced to hire "the most inexperienced barrister in the colony".

He said Kelly was forced to hire the inexperienced Henry Bindon because the judge, Sir Redmond Barry, refused to adjourn the trial so the family could raise more money to get a better lawyer.

            Melbourne historian Mr Ian Jones, who wrote and produced the Ned Kelly television series The Last Outlaw, agreed with Mr Phillips.

A CASE for Ned Kelly

On October 25, 1878, a party of four police – Sergeant Kennedy and Troopers Scanlon, Lonigan and McIntrye — left Mansfield to search for the Kellys and their friends.

            Following a series of incidents at Stringy Bark Creek on the following day, only Trooper McIntyre remained alive.

            Two years later, Edward Kelly was committed to trial in the Supreme Court on a charge of murdering Thomas Lonigan.

            His barrister was Henry Bindon. Although 37, Bindon had been a barrister in Victoria for less then a year.

            He had never appeared in the Supreme Court; inde ed, he had only succeeded in passing the matriculation examination at his third attempt at the age of 27!

            At the trial, the prosecution’s only eye-witness was Trooper Thomas McIntyre, who described the first camp at Stringy Bark Creek when Sergeant Kennedy and Trooper Scanlon had departed on patrol, leaving Lonigan and he alone.

Then, said McIntyre, four armed men came into the camp.

            He said Ned Kelly had brought his rifle up pointing directly at Lonigan. Then, he fired and Lonigan fell immediately. McIntyre was taken prisoner.

            McIntyre said Ned Kelly told him he believed the police had come to shoot him rather than arrest him.

            McIntrye went on to describe the Kelly’s calling on the Kennedy and Scanlon to surrender upon their return, the subsequent exchange of fire and his own escape on Kennedy’s horse after Kennedy had fallen from it.

            Henry Bindon rose to cross-examine McIntyre. He asked this vital eye witness only 22 questions.

            He obtained from McIntyre an admission that none of the police party had a warrant for the arrest fo the Kellys in their possession and that none of them were in uniform.

            But Bindon failed to challenge McIntrye on his description of Lonigan’s death, which description plainly involved Lonigan being shot dead without him having made a movement of any kind, and specifically without him attempting to draw his revolver.

            McIntyre was followed by witnesses who had been prisoners of the Kellys.

            Stephens, a groom, and James Gloster, a hawker, and his assistant Frank Beecroft, said Kelly had told them Lonigan had run behind some logs, drawn his revolver and rested the revolver on the longs before he, Kelly, fired at the policeman.

 Dr Samuel Reynolds later testified that he performed a post-mortem examination on the body of Trooper Lonigan.

            He said he found a gunshot wound near the right eye and another on the temple which was merely a graze.

            There was a further gunshot wound caused by a bullet passing right through the left forearm and another gunshot wound on the left thigh.

            Henry Bindon sought to deal with rumors that the bodies of the policemen had been mutilated by the Kellys after they had been killed: “Dr Reynolds, was it your opinion that many of their wounds had been inflicted after death?”

            “No!” said Reynolds.

            Henry Bindon began his final speech to the jury nervously.

            At Stringy Bark Creek, he contended, there was evidence of various shots being fired and no one could tell for sure which had been fired by Ned Kelly.

            Henry Bindon was certainly inexperienced; but was he also incompetent?

            He appears to have been unable to appreciate the legal significance of the statements Kelly had made to the various witnesses.

            They each involved, in law, the notion of self defence.

            A case for Kelly could have been adequately presented.

            It went thus. Trooper Lonigan’s action in drawing his gun put Kelly in immediate danger of death or at least grievous bodily harm.

            Kelly’s action in shooting Lonigan in the circumstances, believing that the police had come to shoot him and that Lonigan was about to do just that, was the inflicti9on on Lonigan of no greater injury than Kelly in good faith and on reasonable grounds believed to be necessary.

            The most obvious comment about Bindon’s conduct of the trial is that he allowed Trooper McIntyre’s description of Lonigan’s death to remain unchallenged.

            McIntyre’s account and that Kelly simply shot dead a motionless Trooper Lonigan.

            But in October, 1878, he had made a statement to his superior officer, describing the death of Lonigan thus:

            “Suddenly and without us being aware of their approach four men with rifles presented at us called upon us to bail up, hold up your hands.

            “I, being disarmed at the time, did so. Constable Lonigan made a motion to draw his revolver which he was carrying. Immediately he did so he was shot by Edward Kelly and I believe died immediately.”

            This provokes questions of a very grave order indeed. Why did McIntyre not tell the jury at Kelly’s trial that Lonigan had “made a motion to draw his revolver”?

            Did Bindon not know of McIntyre’s first statement? It would be astonishing if he did not, because in the Argus newspaper of October 29, 1878, there had appeared a very accurate account of it.

            Bindon also failed to address the jury about some vital aspects of the evidence of Dr. Reynolds.

Dr. Reynolds’ evidence proved that at least three bullets had struck Lonigan. (The bullet which passed right through the left forearm might have travelled on to cause any one of the other wounds.)

            Are Dr. Reynolds findings consistent with the evidence of McIntyre, who described Kelly killing Lonigan with one shot? Plainly not.

            Dr. Reynolds was also of the opinion all the wounds had been inflicted before death.

            The real issue for the jury in Kelly’s trial was, in factual terms, the nature of the police expedition.

            If they was bent on effecting the lawful arrest of Kelly or his brother, then Kelly’s killing of Trooper Lonigan was murder.

            But if Kelly could show that their real purpose was to shoot him down and in those circumstances he inflicted no greater injury on Lonigan than he in good faith and on reasonable grounds believed to be necessary in order to defend himself,. Then the defence of self defence had been made out and he was entitled to be acquitted.

            Mr Justice Barry, in summing up, sad: “Here, gentleman of the jury, four constables went out to perform a duty, a duty to arrest the prisoner and his brother and when in pursuit of those two persons, they therefore had a double protection than that of the ordinary citizen—that of being ministers of the law charged with the administration of the peace of the country.”

            Justice Barry should have told the jury it was for them to decide whether the police were acting as ministers of justice or summary executioner. Instead, the matter was put to the jury in therms conclusively in favor of the prosecution.

            The conclusion is inescapable that the judge’s summing up contained significant misdirections.

            Were misdirections of this sort to occur in a modern trial, it is likely the verdict would be set aside and a new trial ordered by the Court of Criminal Appeal.

            It is not my purpose to suggest Kelly was an innocent man. The case against him was a very strong one.

            But every accused person has, and had in 1880, the right to a trial according to law.

            Such persons are also entitled to an expectation that their defence, whatever its shortcomings, is sufficiently put to the court.

            The trial of Ned Kelly fails to meet either of these ideals.

Kelly in court: Contemporary illustration of Ned Kelly (right) in the Supreme Court.