“School picnic on the Glenrowan battlefield.” The Australasian Sketcher, September 24, 1881.: 310
Note: The illustrations in this article were made by Thomas Carrington, who had been a witness to the entirety of the siege a little over a year earlier.
On Friday, September 9, a large gathering of Benalla state school children was conveyed from Benalla to Glenrowan in two special trains, for the purpose of spending the day in a picnic on the ground rendered memorable by the fight which took place upwards of a year ago between the Kelly gang and the police. The children and adults on the ground numbered about 3,000, the day was beautifully fine, the locality afforded plenty of interesting topics to talk about and of historical corners to explore, and a very pleasant day was spent. Our artist attended the picnic, and had given some illustrations of the event. The sketches depict the “Picnic at the Foot of ‘Morgan’s Look-out'” in the centre of the page, and in the four corners —— 1. “The Ruins of the Glenrowan Inn.” This is the famous inn occupied by the bushrangers while besieged by the police. Someone has built a hut against one of the chimneys, using as material stone of the corrugated iron of the inn roof, and covering it with bark. 2. “Mr. Curnow’s Schoolhouse.” 3. “Picnic under Kelly’s Tree.” — i.e. the tree where he first appeared on that memorable morning and engaged in combat with the police. 4. “The Place where the Special was to have been Wrecked.” Looking towards Wangaratta. The children seemed quite alive to the historical associations of the place, and all siege the day very agreeably.
Glenrowan 