A letter to the editor from Ann Jones.
Category: History
Posts under this banner discuss the actual history that the novel is based on.
In my poking around through various documents related to the story of the gang I found a bundle through the Public Records Office of Victoria that included a list of items that had been recovered from the gang, mostly at Glenrowan.
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.
“Speaking about the black trackers reminds me of a humorous incident which occurred during the attack on Jones’s hotel to one of these gentlemen. Constable Milne and Constable Gascoigne were standing behind a tree in front of the house keeping a steady fire directed towards it, when a black boy of O’Connor’s, standing under cover a few yards off, called out at he wanted to light his pipe, and asked the constables for a match, Milne thereupon placed a few matches in a blank cartridge, and plugging the end with a piece of paper, threw it towards the tracker. The cartridge, however, did not fall within three or four yards of the tracker, and for a moment the latter was puzzled how to reach it without exposing himself to the fire of the outlaws. At last, after glancing earnestly towards Jones’s hotel, he called out, ‘Ned you —— ; don’t shoot me till I get the matches,’ and sprang forward at the same instant as one of the outlaws sent a bullet within an inch of his head as he stooped, and which would have gone through his body if he had been standing straight. In return for this salute — as soon as the tracker got back to his shelter — he delivered the contents of his rifle into the house, with the remark, ‘Take that Mr, Kelly, and put it in your pipe.'”
“To-morrow will be the fortieth anniversary of the capture of Ned Kelly, the notorious bushranger, at Glenrowan. The accompanying pictures and narrative have been supplied to us by Mr. W. R. Wilson, of Sydney, who has a wonderful store of knowledge of the doings of the gang. At Wangaratta Mr. Wilson was a school-fellow of Ned Kelly and two of the other outlaws, and he was present at the capture of the chief ‘ranger. So much romance has been woven round the career of the Kelly gang that Mr. Wilson feels impelled to tell the true story as he knows it.”
A summary of news reports pertaining to Ned Kelly’s upcoming hearing, the armour, the injured Reardon boy, the burning of the inn and more.
The following description of what took place at Glenrowan is taken from the Melbourne Age of June 29, and although going over the same ground as the telegrams already published, contains fuller information…
Anne Jones, late of the Glenrowan Hotel, was charged before the Wangaratta Bench this morning, under the 275th clause of the Criminal Offences Statute, with harbouring a felon.
A compilation of interviews conducted by Brian Cookson of Ann Jones, Arthur Steele and Paddy Allen.
“But, all the same, I may as well say that my success was owing to my using a shot gun instead of a rifle or pistol. It was no use trying to reach a vulnerable place in that man’s armour with a bullet. Shot was the stuff for that job; good big shot. And that’s what I got him with at last…”
Glenrowan 