NED KELLY 'THE IRON OUTLAW' 28mm

Here is a picture of my 28mm Ned Kelly wearing his iconic armour. The figure is one of the 28mm Australian Bushrangers that I made a couple of years ago. These minis are available from Blazeaway Miniatures http://www.blazeaway.com.au/

Ned is perhaps the best known Australian bushranger. He was born in 1855 into a poor but proud Irish-Australian rural family in North East Victoria and grew up in a clannish close knit environment where strict compliance with the law was not always a priority. This resulted in the police paying uncomfortably close attention to all the dealings of the Kelly family. Ned spent some of his youth associating with Harry Power a notorious bushranger. He spent two periods of his youth in prison, one of six months for assault and one of three years for horse theft - this charge and the harshness of punishment imposed for it is still debated. On his release Ned took up with his Step Father George King from California and rustled horses from Victoria taking them across the Murray River into New South Wales. In 1877 Ned, who was well known to the local police, was arrested for Drunkenness and resisting arrest. Soon after a policeman who had come to the Kelly's house, some say with the intention of imposing himself of Ned's sister Kate, was wounded in the hand by gunshot. The policeman accused Ned of shooting him. Ned, who claimed that he was not even present at the time of the incident, and understandably fearing unsympathetic treatment from the law thought that discretion was the better part of valour and with his brother Dan vanished into the thick forests of North Eastern Victoria. Ned's mother was sentenced to three years prison for being an accomplice in the "attempted murder" of the wounded policeman. This infuriated Ned who, now with a reward on his head was joined by two friends Steve Hart and Joe Byrne, and went deeper into the forests. In October 1878 the Kelly Gang ambushed a party of four police who had been hunting them at Stringbark Creek. In the ensuing shootout three of the police officers were killed and one escaped. This resulted in Ned being Outlawed. The Kelly Gang then went on a bank robbing spree in Victoria and Southern New South Wales and eventually a reward for 8,000 Pounds was posted for them (that is more than $2m in today's money). With the intense police hunt and harassment of all Kelly sympathisers a final clash was inevitable. This occurred at Glenrowan in North Eastern Victoria in June 1880. It was in this fight that the Kelly Gang donned their famous iron suits of armour and shot it out with the police. Three of them, Dan Kelly, Steve Hart and Joe Byrne were killed and Ned, who at dawn walked alone into the police lines firing his revolver, was captured wounded. He was tried, found guilty of murder and hanged on 11 November 1880.