About this copy Following the finding of two old fireplaces of huts at StringyBark in 2002, I shared this information with Kelly researcher Marian Matta. She informed me she had transcribed the ‘Ned Kelly Seminar Papers 1993’ from audio tape Compact Cassettes onto her computer. Marian said one talk given by Ian Jones’s spoke in some detail of him and his son Darren, plus a surveyor attempting to locate a hut site on the western bank of the creek as recorded on a 1884 parish map of the area. Ian spoke, if this hut were ever to be found, it would pinpoint the site where the police party had camped in Oct 1878. I believe Marian’s transcript of the ‘Ned Kelly Seminar Papers’ was issued to ‘The Council of Adult Education’ (CAE) and was printed for attended audience members only. In 2003, on enquiring for a copy, the CAE said they had no knowledge of this publication. Marian then gave me a photo copy and all old floppy discs on which her texts were recorded. At the time I still had a functional floppy disc drive and was able to re format the content to P.D Format, and paragraph the entire document. As it was not my right to make the papers freely available outside the CAE, I thought it best to only make this PDF version available on request from my Two Huts at SBC webpages. Bill Denheld INTRODUCTION The following papers, presented at Beechworth on 13th and 14th November 1993, celebrated the 25th anniversary of the original Ned Kelly: Man & Myth symposium and subsequent publication of the papers. But perhaps more significantly, they also celebrated a sea-change in Kelly research. The past quarter century has seen Ned and the Kelly Outbreak recognised as a major theme in the study of Australian social history, not just an embarrassing aberration or a case of idiosyncratic criminal behaviour. It would be safe to say that Ned is no longer viewed as Colin Cave's "bearded, braggart, brawling Irishman; horse-thief, bank robber, bushranger and murderer; the loud- mouthed, law-breaking, swaggering son of an Irish convict" but as a complex and extraordinary man whose ethical standards and moral courage eclipse his relatively minor criminal tendencies. With the exception of Jane Clark's glorious expedition through Sid Nolan's synthesis of Kelly legend and fact, these papers broadly deal with three aspects; the first is the common experiences of the Kellys, their friends and relations and hundreds of families like them - "very ordinary people who...were living their lives reaching towards very simple and very ordinary things," to quote Ian Jones; the second aspect is the socio- political situation which spawned the Kelly outbreak (although Prof. Weston Bate's paper, Local, Regional, National & International Strands In The Kelly Drama, could not be reprinted here); the third is the gunbattle at Stringybark Creek with two meticulous analyses of the evidence. The papers and the lively discussions which ensued have been edited slightly for smoother reading but I hope they retain the atmosphere of a most enjoyable and stimulating weekend. May there be many more ! The driving force behind the 1993 Ned Kelly: Man & Myth Revisited Symposium was Jill Eastwood from the Council of Adult Education. Sadly, Jill died early the following year - she is greatly missed. The symposium papers are being reproduced with the permission of the CAE and all the speakers involved. Marian Matta, 1994 Copyright of individual papers remains with their authors. ___________________________________________________________________ Ned Kelly: Seminar Papers Nov 1993 Or: Ned Kelly: Man & Myth Revisited Symposium, comprising the following colour coded talks for easier differentiation. CONVERSATIONS WITH SILENT PICTURES Keith McMenomy THE KILLINGS AT STRINGYBARK CREEK: NEW EVIDENCE FROM A SURVIVING WITNESS Ian Jones THE TRIAL OF NED KELLY: MR BINDON KNOWS NOTHING OF MY CASE. The Chief Justice of Victoria, His Honour John H. Phillips THE KELLYS & BEECHWORTH REVISITED Ian Jones NED KELLY: SOCIAL BANDIT OR RURAL CRIMINAL? Dr. John McQuilton MODERN MYTH: SIDNEY NOLAN'S NED KELLY Jane Clark CONVERSATIONS WITH SILENT PICTURES Keith McMenomy With some exceptions, the slides shown during this lecture appear in Keith McMenomy's book, Ned Kelly: the Authentic Illustrated Story, Currey O'Neil Ross, Melbourne, 1984. The appropriate page numbers are included below. A few years ago I was lucky enough to get published a pictorial history of Ned. I had been in the audience at the first seminar in 1967 and at that time I was trying to put the finishing touches to the text of it and now I'm correcting all the mistakes I made in the effort. But to go back a little, I used to spend time at the central library in Melbourne, on weekends and evenings, trying to read history, and sometimes I'd wander into the Museum of Applied Science next door which had a glass case with Kelly armour and different artifacts. It was an interesting example of applied science for one thing, and also the most popular exhibit in the whole museum and I was captured by the photographs in that glass case. It seemed to me as a student that they gave us a direct contact, a direct look at the Kellys as they were. It became a hobby. I started collecting photographs and artifacts and that led to documents and so on. Then I began to pester Ian Jones for help and the whole thing got out of hand and eventually I had to write a book. I think probably too many books have been written about Ned but - as a qualifier - not too many excellent books have been written. In fact some of the best books have been written by people who are delivering talks this weekend, present company excluded. Until recent years, many books were done as commercial journalism; they were rushed out to a budget and were fairly superficial efforts. There are two traps in dealing with the Kelly story; one is that it's too easy to overdramatise it and the other is to come down completely on one side or the other, either totally against the Kellys or totally for them. I think the whole thing was far more complicated than that and probably more complicated that I thought at the time I was writing the book. Over the years people have asked me whether I can say anything new about Ned and in fairness I don't think I did, but what I set out to do was to cut through the rhetoric and the mythologising and present what I felt at that time was the real material. When the book got close to being published the publisher's PR department asked me if there were some dramatic revelations they could put out to drum up some interest in it and I felt that the only thing I could say was what I hadn't found about the story. To me that was more dramatic than the actual discoveries. At that time I thought I shouldn't perhaps mention these things but they've all been canvassed before and in this sort of venue they're not really controversial. I found no evidence, for example, to suggest homosexuality in the gang, no evidence to substantiate Ned's marriage and no firm or serious evidence to suggest the Kelly hut was ever used as a brothel. These are all things that have been floated, drummed up at different times to get media attention, and some of them are totally without foundation while others have got some basis. A more plausible issue is the Declaration of the Republic which unfortunately we still don't have documentary evidence or other material to substantiate. I think a number of Kelly students are fairly convinced that there was a series of meetings where it was formalised and documented but unfortunately the records are still eluding us. There's a distinct possibility that some of these things may come to light in the future as it's amazing how new material keeps coming to the surface. I'm still getting photographs and the like to add to the collection, thanks to the help of other historians and so on, and it's just incredible that people who weren't wealthy, who didn't have access to photographers very frequently are so well documented. In one of the bits of literature from the CAE I noticed we were supposed to be addressing our latest research. I'll admit that the photos I've been getting in the last few years are less dramatic, less central to the story but they are still of very important peripheral characters - I haven't included any of those in this presentation. Getting back to the reason for the Kelly book - I had the belief that I could demystify the subject by returning to the original documentary material and although it wasn't a total failure it had distinct weaknesses because as an avid historian I didn't emphasise enough the overall social framework of the Kelly story. In fairness, I got bogged down in the detail and never got out of it. But what am I trying to say? My presentation today is about the problems involved in presenting a realistic Kelly account and the difficulty in retrieving Ned Kelly the man. In some respects it's a perverse approach which might be appropriate given my surname and Ned's story. Many people are irritated by doubt and require certainty and closure so I'm unlikely to be emphatic and clear and settled on these issues - I find it very difficult to do that.