On November 11, 1880, Ned Kelly, Australia’s most famous bushranger, was hanged at the Melbourne Gaol with the last words “Such is life.” And so today, on the anniversary of his death and as his gun is due to go under the hammer, now is an excellent time to look at the history of the man sometime referred to as Australia’s answer to Robin Hood. Many more Ned Kelly resources are to be found inside.

Ned Kelly is something of an Australian icon and the story of the Kelly Gang is firmly placed in the history of Australia, so much so that it inspired the world’s first ever feature length film, as well as a less well received film starring Heath Ledger and Orlando Bloom). There are even many traditional ballads inspired by Kelly and his gang.

There are many Ned Kelly resources online for those interested in learning more about Australia’s most famous bushranger. For instance, Picture Australia also has many images of him while the State Library of Victoria has an online version of the Jerilderie Letter, a letter written (or perhaps dictated) by Kelly describing his view of his activities and the treatment of his family and, more generally, the treatment of Irish Catholics by the police.

Kelly had had originally written the letter to a politician known only as ‘Cameron’, but that correspondence was suppressed from the public and was not made public until it was published by the Melbourne Herald in 1930. If you found the version I lined to earlier hard to read, here is another site dedicated to that letter, with the text of the letter in both HTML and flash formats. The letter has inspired much debate about whether Kelly was truly an outlaw or a hero.

There is an excellent site dedicated to Kelly’s famous last stand at Glenrowan, and another good site which has collected most of the research on the evolution of the Kelly gang.

Here are some more sites you may find useful or interesting.

Timeline of the Kelly gang.
Another Ned Kelly biography.
More photos.
Ned Kelly’s stay at Beechworth.

And when you’re done with all of that, why not take a small quiz to see how much you’ve remembered!