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Ned Kelly (1885–1880)
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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State Library
of Victoria

Melbourne
Australia

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.