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Home , Aaron Sherritt, Harry Power, Jerilderie Letter, Ned Kelly, Redmond Barry, The Kelly Gang

NED KELLY AND THE UNIVERSITY OF

BY MICHAEL PIGGOTT

N THAT PIVOTAL YEAR OF 1942, communicate and theorise! Inevitably With such interest it is timely to Clive Turnbull wrote: " is there are now a number of Kelly review the varied associations the Ithe best known Australian, our only websites.2 University has with the Kelly phe- folk hero", 1 a judgement time seemed to nomenon. Some are now of mere inci- For proof of the Kelly legend's confirm. On the cover of its final issue dental interest, such as the inclusion of enduring power, however, nothing previ- for 1966, The Bulletin presented a mon- the armour, pistol and death mask in a ously has quite matched this year. The tage comprising a photo of the now fundraising " Festival of Art use of Nolan's Kelly imagery in the iconic helmet from Music Literature and History" held at Olympics opening ceremony armour, a posy of flowers, and a repro- Wilson Hall in May 1959. Probably the and the release of 's new duction of a Donald Friend painting best known link is via Sir Redmond novel3 were the high points, but there making explicit reference to Sidney Barry (1813-1880), a Senior Puisne have also been news stories about the Nolan's Kelly series. Words spelt out Judge of the Supreme Court of armour, the skull, and discoveries of fur- who had sent Kelly's uncle and mother what was being suggested visually: ther relevant documentation. There have to prison before, in October 1880, sen- "NED KELLY RIDES AGAIN and been re-enactments of the trial, a tencing him to death. Barry was also the again, again and again...". Inside was Channel Nine 60 Minutes program and University's first Chancellor and, in the an article by M H Ellis called "The straw poll, and legal attempts to recover opinion of Peter Ryan, "the indubitable legend of Ned Kelly", its subtitle "a payments never handed to the prime founder of the University of vicious arch-bully with dingo eyes" aboriginal police troopers. Melbourne".5 Barry's approach to the reminding us that commentators from Finally there was the launch in early trial and Ned Kelly's various statements the 1870s onwards have mixed opinion September of PictureAustralia,4 the during and after it, including one that with scholarship, and included what National Library's collaborative online today would be labelled "black arm- gateway to photo and other image col- anticipated the judge's demise so soon band" and "white blindfold" views of lections. The Library's choice of logo, after his own, have contributed to his history. based on the Nolan-Kelly helmet, it notoriety as well as the enduring power of the Kelly legend. As Paul de Serville The subsequent 34 years have seen described as "a quintessentially put it, until recent reassessments, Kelly's the legend continue to flourish, fed by a Australian icon", underlined by the pres- death overshadowed Barry's life. Other media with a self-reinforcing belief that ence in the collections of the inaugural University connections attended the exe- any story including the Ned Kelly name partners of a Ned Kelly artefact. cution and its immediate aftermath: the should be printed. There have been gaol surgeon, Dr Edward Barker, was other factors too: "Kelly Country" Top, left: The inspiration for Ned Kelly's also the lecturer in surgery; and more tourism and more general commercial armour? — "Helmet of Richard I from his directly, the Medical School was exploitation, artistic and literary imagi- Great Seal" — in Walter Scott, Waverley Novels Vol. XVI, Ivanhoe, Adam and involved in the various certifications nation, the urge deep within us to sou- Charles Black, Edinburgh, 1860 (Rare required for the execution, including a venir and collect, and of course aspects Books Collection, death mask. of 's identity. Innumerable fea- Library). ture articles, several novels, and a televi- Top, right: Logo of PictureAustralia, a However it is through the work of sion mini-series marked the centenary of National Library website providing access commentators and the collections of the to Australian pictorial images. The logo is his death in 1980. And over the past based on 's famous series of University that the strongest links can be decade, the interne has provided a Ned Kelly paintings. (PictureAustralia, made. As to the former, one of the ear- whole new platform for enthusiasts to ) liest was Edward Morris, Professor of

THE UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE LIBRARY JOURNAL • 2000 English, French and German Languages Kelly story including the Police and Literature at the University of Commissioner Frederick Standish, Melbourne, who suggested in his Superintendents Nicholson and Sadleir, Cassell's Picturesque Australia that the Detective M. Ward and John Sherritt, as inspiration for the armour was an illus- well as items by Hare. The collection trated edition of a Walter Scott novel. 6 has its own mysteries. One is its prove- In more recent times, Associate nance: the letters were found in a steel Professor Miles Lewis, whose expertise box in St Mark's Church Fitzroy in 1978 includes vernacular timber buildings, lacking any indication of how they came has assisted with heritage aspects of to be there. (They were placed with the Ned Kelly's father's house at Beveridge. University Archives through the good Most scholarly contributions however offices of a member of the History have been historical, with alumni and Department, the late Dr John Foster, ex-academics featuring significantly in who was briefly associated with St the contemporary Kelly bibliography: Mark's.) The other puzzle is the rela- Tom Prior, Weston Bate, Professor tively little use the collection has Vincent Buckley, Dr John McQuilton, attracted, particularly from scholarly Professor Louis Waller, and Professor writers. . Archivists and librarians have also As for the collections, the been drawn to the Kelly story, beyond University's prize resource is undoubt- their roles in managing collections and edly the material gathered over a life- ensuring accessibility for research, and time's collecting of Australiana by the again there are strong university associa- late Ian McLaren, OBE FRHSV MLA, tions. In 1968 Margaret Jennings, later held in the Special Collections unit of to be the University's first officially des- the University Library. Crime was one ignated Records Manager, published Superintendent Francis Hare, shot in the of McLaren's strong collecting interests, Ned Kelly: the legend and the man, a wrist by Ned Kelly at Glenrowan, 28 June, and this extended to Ned Kelly and schools kit of reproductions and accom- 1880. (Photo: McLaren Collection, Kelly's mentor , whom University of Melbourne Library.) panying text as part of the Hill of McLaren wrote up for the Australian Content Archive series. More critical to Dictionary of Biography. His Kelly col- developing a pictorially based Kelly lit- lection documents through correspon- erature was Harry Nunn, a University of dence his pursuit of all manner of adaptations of 's The Kelly Melbourne (Trinity College) graduate Kellyana including ephemera, movie Hunters; a pamphlet using the saga for and Victoria's first Keeper of Public scripts, publicity posters, stills and even teaching Bible lessons, and one of only Records. While he was with the a set of dinner place mats. But the core three copies known to exist of the Archives Section of the State Library in material comprises almost 300 books, anonymous pamphlet The Life and the 1950s he began collating an artificial pamphlets, fiction, comics and other Adventures of the Kelly Kelly series of official documents for printed items plus newspaper cuttings, published in Adelaide in 1881. 7 fear that if left in the files they would books and photographs. It is one of the too readily tempt collectors, yet thereby The University Archives also strongest public collections on the sub- facilitating his and later researchers' use. includes relevant material, unexpectedly ject, with particular strengths in its mul- The result was Plundering Sons: a pic- given its principal collecting themes of tiple editions of writings by C. H. torial history of Australian Chomley (1900+), Ambrose Pratt university, businesses, unions, profes- bushranging.9 Frank Strahan, the (1916+) and Francis Hare (1892+, three sional and community groups. In partic- University's foundation archivist, has of our editions not being recorded by ular there is a collection of 54 letters also been interested in the Kelly story Ferguson). Of the scrapbooks, one is and documents received by and relating via his deep love of north east Victoria especially useful for a contemporary to Superintendent Francis Hare covering and a family connection: his great great press perspective, being drawn from a 1859 to 1887, one of Kelly's pursuers grandfather was Senior Constable number of Melbourne and regional and briefly in charge of the first stage of Anthony Strahan, one of Kelly's pur- newspapers covering 1878 to 1882. Kelly's capture. Nicely complementing suers. The results were a piece of the Among the collection's rare, unusual his published memoir, The Last of the old Kelly home at Greta West for the and unique items are the typescript and ,8 the collection includes archives, and an article for the Overland several later condensed and serialised letters by some of the key figures of the Kelly anniversary issue in July 1981,

4 THE UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE LIBRARY JOURNAL • 2000 accompanied by reproductions of some NOTES of Hare's letters.

1. Clive Tumbull's introduction to Ned For the current archivist, interest Kelly: being his own story of his life arises from the interplay of the legend's documentation and its historiography. and crimes, Hawthorn Press, 1942, One remarkable facet is how readily a P. 1. life can be recounted with so little 2. Eg and years, but a single holograph letter is (October 2000). called Cameron Letter, and the 3. Peter Carey, The True History of the "Declaration of the Republic of North- Eastern, Victoria" are yet to be made Kelly Gang, University of Queensland available to the public or even an auc- Press, 2000. In a smart marketing tion house. As for the Letter, move, its release was matched by a fur- though its content has been long known, ther reprint of ' 1995 authori- its acquisition by the State Library was tative account, Ned Kelly: a short life, announced as this article was going to Lothian Books, 2000. press. Fortunately for those who are 4. See unhappy relying just on oral tradition, (October 2000). crime — particularly murder — tends to beget its own official and newsprint 5. See Australian Dictionary of traces. By the "Last Stand" at Biography, Vol. 3, Melbourne Glenrowan, there were eyewitnesses University Press, 1969, p. 109. including newspaper reporters, artists, 6. Volume 4, Cassell & Company photographers, and dozens of police and Limited, London, 1889, p. 104. There hundreds of sightseers, resulting in "one Sir , the University of were images in at least two Scott of the most densely documented inci- Melbourne's first chancellor (1853-1880) dents in Australian history". 10 It so hap- and the man who sentenced Ned Kelly to novels, Ivanhoe and The Talisman. hang. (Photo: McLaren Collection, pens there was also a Kelly Reward 7. Based on Wayne Vargo's Ned Kelly in University of Melbourne Library.) Board to assess claims to the reward the McLaren Collection: an annotated monies and a Police Royal Commission bibliography, M.Lib thesis, University the year after the trial, which generated of Melbourne, 1995. an indispensable resource of 18,000 without them. 12 Those challenging 8. Francis Hare, The Last of the questions and answers plus extensive oppression or involved in any way with Bushrangers: an account of the capture supporting details. For all this, the rule of law are especially aware of of the Kelly gang, Hurst and Blackett, Australia's leading Kelly scholar Ian this. The security surveillance files of London, 1892. Jones has noted also how crucial were the East German Stasi organisation, "those most perishable of historical used in contrasting ways both before 9. Lansdowne, 1966, compiled with Tom sources — human memory and the land- and after reunification, springs immedi- Prior and Bill Wannan. It was subse- scape" where so many of the key ately to mind as an obvious political quently to appear in new editions and players "lived and died". 11 We might illustration. As for the Kelly saga, titles, finally under Nunn's single also reflect on how elusive can be the roughly a century before, in February authorship. simplest historical facts, some quite 1879 at the Jerilderie branch of the 10. Jones, p. 382. important to the legend. There were 22 Bank of New South Wales, Ned took official witnesses at the hanging, 11. Ian Jones, The Friendship that cash and bills from the safe but including a number of journalists, yet no Destroyed Ned Kelly: and destroyed deeds and mortgages, agreement on Ned Kelly's famous last . believing financial institutions were Lothian Books, 1992, words. p. viii. "slavers and poor-man crushers". 12. For a US illustration, see Stanton Finally there is the glimpse we are provided of the crucial role record It seems safe to observe that Ned Wheeler, ed., On Record: files and keeping plays in regulating the transac- Kelly and the University will continue to dossiers in American life, New York, tions of everyday affairs. Society does Michael Piggott is the University Archivist at Russell Sage Foundation, 1969. not, and simply could not, function the University of Melbourne.

THE UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE LIBRARY JOURNAL • 2000 5