Kennedy family story explains Ned Kelly was a horse thief and killer not an Australian folk hero

A NEW book reinforces the view Ned Kelly was a horse thief who murdered three policemen and should not be promoted as an Australian symbol of freedom, writes GRANTLEE KIEZA

Leo Kennedy, whose great-grandfather was brutally murdered by the Kelly Gang, has written a book about the "hero myth" of Ned Kelly. Photo: David Caird

READERS who snapped up The Brisbane Courier for threepence on the morning of Tuesday, October 29, 1878 received startling bulletins from around the world in the pages of this city’s most trusted news source.

Advertisers flocked for prime position among the four-pages of newsprint.

Leo Kennedy’s great grandfather Sgt Michael Kennedy was ambushed and shot dead at Stringybark Creek by Ned Kelly. Picture: Jason Edwards

Constable Thomas Lonigan who was murdered by the Kelly Gang at Stringybark Creek on October 26, 1878. Picture: Ben Swinnerton

There were ads for the palatial Bellevue Hotel “near Parliament House and Botanic Gardens’’, Keating’s insect powder and worm tablets and the timetable for the Cobb and Co coach service from Sandgate to Brisbane.

It was a big news cycle and at the Courier’s office in George St, and telegram delivery boys were run off their feet.

More than 600 bodies had been fished out of the Thames after the paddle steamer Princess Alice collided with the coal ship Bywell Castle off Woolwich in London.

Queen Victoria and the Prince of Wales had donated 150 guineas to a fund to help those affected and the Australian cricket team was chipping in with another 100 guineas. As well, more than 200 men and boys had been killed in a mining disaster at Abercarn just outside Newport, Wales.

But a few lines of news about a shocking crime in remote bushland in northern Victoria, would be remembered in Australia long after those British disasters faded from memory.

The brief telegraphed information was reported as:

Monday October 28, 3pm

A party of constables has been attacked by four bushrangers at Stringybark Creek, who are supposed to belong to a gang under a desperado named Kelly, for whom the police were seeking. Two constables were shot dead; the third escaped, after having his horse shot under him; and the fourth is missing.

Over the next few days more details of the crime would be revealed in the pages of the Courier and around the country.

Australia's most infamous criminal, Ned Kelly, in chains at the Melbourne Gaol. Picture: State Library of Victoria

Black Snake: The Real Ned Kelly Story by Leo Kennedy. Picture: Supplied

Edward “Ned” Kelly, who ran a major horse stealing operation on both sides of the Murray River, had killed two of the policemen – Constable Thomas Lonigan and Michael Scanlan. He and his gang had fired on the other two as they tried to escape.

Constable Thomas McIntyre survived a night and day in the bush before making it back to civilisation to raise the alarm but Ned Kelly hunted the wounded police party’s leader, Sergeant Michael Kennedy, for several hundred metres like he was tracking a bleeding animal and finished him off with a shotgun blast to the chest at point blank range.

Kennedy was a highly respected policeman from Mansfield with a pregnant wife and five children. He was well known in the area for his fairness and compassion and for leading search parties for children lost in the bush.

The cart carrying his dead body travelled past his home to Mansfield’s mortuary. His wife, Bridget, lost their baby with the shock of his murder.

A policeman poses as Ned Kelly in his infamous “suit of armour” following Kelly’s capture. Kelly was eventually caught and hanged at Melbourne Gaol in 1880. Picture: AP/State Library of Victoria..

Leo Kennedy is their great-grandson. He is a Melbourne solicitor and was a big help with family information and advice when I wrote my book Mrs Kelly last year about the bushranging saga that has captivated Australia since those killings at Stringybark Creek.

Leo has now written his own book, along with journalist Mic Looby, from the Kennedy perspective, telling how the death of his grandfather shattered his family for decades.

The book is called Black Snake the name a teenage Ned Kelly used to describe the way people were treating him when they suspected he had become a police informer.

Black Snake is a powerful book that reinforces Leo’s strident argument that a horse thief who murdered three policemen should never be promoted as an Australian tourist icon or symbol of our national freedom.

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Grantlee Kieza’s new biography of Banjo Paterson is published by HarperCollins/ABC Books