| Christie's

A 10% Goods and Services tax (G.S.T) will be charg… Read more

EDWARD 'NED' KELLY (1855-1880) John Barry begins The Australian Dictionary of National Biography account of Ned Kelly by describing him as a Bushranger but ends by reiterating Clive Turnbull's claim that 'Ned Kelly is the best known Australian, our only folk hero...and has taken new life in Sidney Nolan's series of Kelly-gang paintings. The legend still persists and seemingly has a compelling quality that appeals to something deeply rooted in the character of the average Australian.' This has now been extended into the modern Australian literary landscape with the publication of Peter Carey's True History of the Kelly Gang related in Ned Kelly's particular idiom, compared by some to James Joyce and Samuel Beckett. Most recently the Irish government's latest issue of stamps commmemorating Irish rebels inlcude Peter Lalor and Ned Kelly. Ned Kelly was born in 1855, within weeks of the Eureka rising, in which the Irish, under Peter Lalor and the Tipperary boys had played a significant role. The son of a transported British convict, Kelly grew up in the North Eastern Victorian Bush where the family scraped a harsh living from the soil. In this frontier territory they repeatedly came into conflict with the British squattocracy, colonial law and the police. Political and economic law was wielded by the squatters, the big landholders, and sheep and cattle barons. The consequent economic problems led to conflict between squatters and selectors such as the Kelly's. Although never quite reaching the level of violence of America's land wars of the same period, there were similarities. In The Age Saturday essay of 16 January 1999 Barry Whalen has analysed the similarities between Kelly and the American outlaw William Bonney, known as Billy the Kid, and the times they lived in. Both were young Irish Catholics born into poor families, who shared 'an Irish sense of persecution and injustice.' Both were articulate and Kelly's Jerilderie Lette is 'one of the most eloquent and vituperative protests in Australian History.' Both died young, Ned at 26 in November 1880, Billy at 21 in July 1881. Both appeared at a time when Australia and America were settling their open spaces, poised between two ages and two worlds. Barbed wire, invented in 1874, fenced in the open spaces, ending the old frontier bush culture and beginning its 'ordered defined rule of the urban elite.' The Telegraph, steam trains and new printing technology completed the new order. Ned's father, John 'Red' Kelly, an ex-convict from Tipperary passed on to his son a burning pride in Ireland, a love of her traditions and a yearning for freedon from what Ned would call 'The Saxon Yoke'. This bleak existence developed frontier skills in Kelly, sheep shearing, log splitting. His expertise as a bushman and horseman extended into the local culture of cattle-and horse-rustling. After his father's death in 1866, his mother married a Californian, George King. When the Kelly gang's brushes with the law ended in the death of 3 policemen at Springybark Creek, one account suggests that Ned Kelly attempted to take a vessel from Lakes Entrance in East Gippsland, to America. In the inevitable confrontation with the Law, Kelly's choice of armour was apparently influenced by his favourite book, Richard Blackmore's Lorna Doone in which the hero first glimpses the outlaw Doones of Bagworthy in leather jerkins, longboots and iron plates on breast and head. Over thirty plough mould boards were stolen and fashioned into four suits of armour, possibly based on a set of ancient Chinese armour imported for the Beechworth Carnival of 1874 and preserved in the town's Burke Museum. The Battle of Glenrowan resulted in the deaths of Joe Byrne, Steve Hart and Dan Kelly. The badly injured Ned Kelly was taken to Melbourne gaol. Sentenced to death by Judge Redmond Barry, Kelly could not give evidence on his own behalf. Visited by his mother, who was also serving a prison sentence, Kelly prepared his appeal, which was denied and, finally for his death. There was much sympathy for Kelly who was seen increasingly as a victim of a corrupt and bullying police force. The petition for a reprieve was signed by 32,000 people. His appeal denied, Kelly prepared for the inevitable. The night before his death he spent time singing hymns and songs. His favorite being The Sweet bye-and-bye, also a popular gospel song in the American West. On 11 November 1880 Kelly was hanged at Melbourne gaol and a legend was born which still persists. The image of Kelly encased in armour is one that is recognised by most Australians as uniquely Australian. The shoulder piece is a unique and final relic of that image. Kelly has come to be synonymous with the Australian attitude to mateship, rebellion, authority and independence. Some commentators see the Kelly outbreak as social and political rebellion. The Kelly phenonomen has also influenced Australia's cultural and intellectual life. Australia's first feature film was on Kelly. The artist Sidney Nolan's Kelly series paintings image was extended internationally most recently through the dramatic opening scenes of the Sydney Olympics. Peter Carey's latest work on Kelly has been published to international acclaim, with a film in the offing. Ned Kelly has also been taken in to the Dreamtime stories of the indigenous people of North Western Australia. Kelly probably met Aborigines in the Murray district where he was introduced to their way of life. In his fugitive years Aborigines would be the only pursuers he truly feared. They have now granted him a place in their mythology unrivalled by any other man, white or black. The Aborigines affirm that Captain Cook is long dead while Ned Kelly, because he is concerned with freedom, dignity and justice, lives on.

Details

EDWARD 'NED' KELLY (1855-1880), shoulder-piece from Kelly's suit of armour, fashioned from iron plough mould-board, [length; 25cm, width over curve; weight2.37kg.

Used once, on the only occasion Ned Kelly wore his complete suit of armour, at the battle of Glenrowan on 28 June 1880, the shoulder piece is in the form of a vambrace, for the protection of the upper arm.

Despite the much publicised 'discovery' of Ned Kelly's armour last year, it had been known for many years that most of its pieces were incorporated in two publicly owned suits; Kelly's helmet and breastplate formed part of 'Steve Hart's' armour in the State Library collection, while his backplate and apron, or 'lappet', were included in the 'Dan Kelly' suit in the Police Museum. Inexplicably, one of Ned Kelly's two shoulder guards, once attached to the Library suit as a back apron, had found its way into the Museum of Victoria's collection.

The ownership of the present shoulder piece can be traced directly to Constable Patrick Charles Gascoigne, one of the Benalla Police who followed superintendent Francis Hare in the pre-dawn attack on the Kelly Gang at Glenrowan Inn on 28 June 1880. During the intial gun battle with the armoured bushrangers, Gascoigne wounded Ned Kelly. While it was still dark, he again encountered the armour-clad outlaw outside the inn and fired several shots into his body with no apparent effect, although he heard something fall to the ground. As Kelly turned to move back around the building, he called 'you bloody cocktails, you can't hurt me, I'm in iron!' Gascoigne realised the bushranger was wearing armour and reported this to Superintendent Sadleir when he arrived at Glenrowan some time later. Soon after daybreak, Kelly was captured after a final gunfight on the far side of the battlefield and stripped of his armour. One shoulder piece was found to be missing. After the burning of Glenrowan Inn that afternoon, according to family tradition, Gascoigne retrieved the missing shoulder piece from the ground where Kelly had been standing during their second exchange of shots, stowing it in his saddle bag. Later, when officers began tracking down and confiscating Kelly items gathered by Police during the siege, Gascoigne threw his armour into a creek, recovering it some time later.

Gascoigne believed his piece was a 'thigh plate' the identification it retained within the family. The relic received some publicity in 1965 when a writer for Country Life recalled a conversation with the ex-constable 'around 1920 or 21' during which he had been shown a piece of metal 'beaten into a partly round shape to fit over a man's thigh', identified as 'a part of Kelly's armour.' In the article Gascoigne was disguised as 'Gladstone', and many details were garbled by lapse of memory. However in essence, it captured the story as passed down in the Gascoigne family. (see Country Life Fat Lamb Annual 3 September 1965) Two years later, Gascoinge's daughter, Kitty Davenport, gave an interview to the Melbourne Sun 1 November 1967, in which she spoke of her late father's role at the Glenrowan siege and claimed to have 'a thigh plate from the original, the authentic Ned Kelly armour.' Sun. Less than 3 years later, 9 September 1970, a collecter called Stuart Bliss bought a number of items from Frances Gascoigne, Kitty Davenport's niece, who lived with her at the time of her death in Austin Street, Balwyn, Victoria. Listed among the items was 'Kelly Armour, Metal Shoulder Piece.' Bliss regarded it as 'the gem of his collection.' An inscribed label (present now only in a copy) giving important details was originally attached to the shoulder piece.
In November 2000, Melbourne Barrister Ken Oldis, who has made a study of the Kelly armour, and Kelly authority Ian Jones examined the 'Gascoigne' piece and compared it with the matching shoulder piece in the Museum of Victoria collection. Both considered the 'Gascoinge' shoulder piece to be genuine, perfectly matching the museum item in material and details of workmanship. The Museum shoulder piece, like part of Ned Kelly's breastplate, is made from a plough mould board bearing the imprint of the well known plough maker, Hugh Lennon. The 'Gascoigne' piece is so perfect a match, in thickness and steel quality, that it credibly reprents the other half of the same mouldboard. A 'signature' detail of workmanship on both shoulder guards and the Kelly breastplate is the punch and die used for making holes, all of which show identical diameter and a characteristic 'shoulder' around the rim.

Oldis and Jones were both impressed by the fact that the 'Gascoigne' shoulder piece does not replicate the 'shovel blade' shape of the Museum example. It is far more rectangular (A forger would have copied the shape of the existing sholder piece, as did the showmen who produced suits of Kelly armour for display soon after his capture.

In the opinion of Ken Oldis, the present shoulder piece 'has the hallmarks of authenticity', while Ian Jones goes further 'I have absolutely no reason to doubt that this is the second shoulder piece from Ned Kelly's armour.'

Provenance

Constable Patrick Charles Gascoigne, Kitty Davenport, Frances Gascoigne, Stuart Bliss, thence by descent to the present vendor

Special notice

A 10% Goods and Services tax (G.S.T) will be charged on the Buyer's Premium on all lots in this sale.

More from SPORT IN AUSTRALIA & HISTORICAL AND LITERARY PROPERTIES

View All