Ned Kelly

Last Stand

The answer, of course, was Sheritt.

Most historians now believe that Ned Kelly and the gang decided that on June 26, 1880, they would kill two birds with one stone. On that day, Byrne, ignoring the police guard around Sheritt, walked up to the front door of his childhood friend's cottage, knocked, and when Sheritt opened the door, Byrne shot him dead.

It was not simply a random act of vengeance. Historians believe that Kelly and the gang had concluded that the assassination of a police informant in front of police officers would be so outrageous that the authorities would have to react immediately. They miscalculated, at least partially. Records show that it took the constables assigned to protect Sheritt nearly 24 hours to report his death.

But by that point, Kelly and the gang were already lying in wait.

According to public records, Kelly and Hart had reached Glenrowan earlier in the day and had set up headquarters in the local hotel. They had taken several locals prisoner, among them laborers who they pressed into service tearing up the tracks in advance of the coming police assault. It wasn't until the morning of June 27^th, that police, led by Hare, finally rolled into the neighborhood.

At 3 a.m., according to most accounts, a local schoolteacher, Thomas Curnow who had been released by the Kelly gang after learning of the plot, heard the approaching train and rushed out to warn the police. The warning gave police enough time to stop the train and avoid the trap. Instead of being ambushed, they went on the offensive, rushing toward the hotel where Ned Kelly, Dan Kelly, Byrne and Hart were still donning their armor.

It was, by all accounts, as bloody a battle as Kelly had imagined it would be. For three full hours, guns blazed on both sides. At on point, Ned Kelly, though wounded, slipped outside, hoping to get a better vantage point to rain death on the police. And then the guns fell silent. Inside the hotel, Dan Kelly, Byrne and Hart lay dead. So did four innocent civilians. Adding to the hellish scene, the hotel erupted into flames, and when the bodies of Dan Kelly and Hart were recovered, they were burned beyond recognition.

But that is not the lingering of the battle. The one image that remains is of Ned Kelly lumbering in his handmade armor toward his pursued, his gun blazing as he struggles against a rain of police bullets.