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Ned
Kelly (18851880)
Ned Kelly's Jerilderie Letter dictated
to Joe Byrne, February 1879
Courtesy of the La Trobe Australian Manuscripts
Collection, State Library of Victoria
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Ned
Kelly's Jerilderie Letter
1879
Ned
Kelly, the Australian bushranger, carried out
a series of daring robberies with his gang in
Victoria and New South Wales from 1878 to 1880,
after which he was captured and hanged.
Only
two original documents by Ned Kelly are known
to have survived. The most significant of these
is the Jerilderie Letter, dictated by Ned Kelly
to Joe Byrne in 1879. It is a direct link to the
Kelly Gang and the events with which they were
associated. This lengthy letter has been described
as Ned Kelly's 'manifesto', and brings his distinctive
voice to life. The Jerilderie Letter provides
a detailed account of Ned Kelly's troubled relations
with the police. The passionate tone of the letter
makes plain the intensity of Kelly's antagonism
towards the police, and his sense of injustice
about the treatment that his family had received
at the hands of the law.
The
letter was written immediately before the Kelly
Gang's raid on the Riverina town of Jerilderie
in February 1879. In that raid, the gang held
up the Bank of New South Wales and escaped with
more than £2000. While the gang controlled
the town, Kelly sought to give the letter to Samuel
Gill, editor of the Jerilderie and Urana Gazette,
with the specific demand that it be published.
However, to Kelly's anger, he discovered that
Gill had already escaped from the town after becoming
aware of the gang's presence.
To
pacify Kelly, the bank's accountant, Edwin Living,
offered to take the letter and to pass it to Gill.
Kelly gave it to him—his clear purpose in seeking
to have the letter printed was to provide an explanation
for his situation, and an accurate record of what
had passed between the Kelly family and the police.
Edwin
Living lent the letter to the police in Melbourne
and a copy of it was made. The original document
was eventually returned to Living. It seems that
at no stage did Living ever take steps to have
the letter printed.
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