Jerilderie Letter
The Jerilderie Letter is a handwritten document that was dictated by Australian bushranger and outlaw Ned Kelly to fellow gang member Joe Byrne in 1879.
In it, Kelly aims to justify his actions, including the murder of three policemen in October 1878 at Stringybark Creek.
It is a longer and more detailed version of the Cameron Letter which Kelly sent to a member of the Victorian Legislative Assembly and the police in December 1878.
[3][4] After the Kelly Gang shot dead three policemen at Stringybark Creek in Victoria in October 1878 they were declared outlaws.
[5] Reacting to the killings, the Victorian Government enacted the Felons' Apprehension Act 1878 which authorised any citizen to shoot a declared outlaw on sight.
In response to Donald Cameron’s criticism, Victorian Premier Graham Berry promised a 'searching enquiry' if sufficient evidence was provided.
[8] On 9 December 1878, the Kelly Gang robbed the National Bank in Euroa, Victoria, after taking hostages at Younghusband's station nearby.
[9] Shortly after the Euroa robbery, Donald Cameron and Police Superintendent John Sadleir each received a copy of Kelly’s letter which he had signed 'Edward Kelly, enforced outlaw' and in which he attempted to tell his side of the events leading up to the killing of three policemen at Stringybark Creek in October 1878.
[1] Living ignored Kelly's demands and set off on horseback with the document towards Deniliquin, New South Wales, 50 miles away, from where he planned to catch a train to Melbourne.
[13] When Living stopped to rest at John Hanlon's hotel eight miles from Deniliquin he gave an account of what had happened in Jerilderie.
The following morning Living and Tarleton took the train to Melbourne where they delivered Kelly's letter to the office of the Bank of New South Wales.
[15][16] However, shortly after the Kelly Gang's raid on Jerilderie a summary of the contents of the letter was being published and commented on in Australian newspapers.
[23][24] The original letter includes an undated note written by Edwin Living stating that "This is the document given to me by Ned Kelly when the Bank at Jerilderie was stuck up in Feby.
[25][26] In the letter Kelly defends his bushranging actions, condemns those he believed had wronged him and warns the public not to defy him.
He begins with the words "Dear Sir, I wish to acquaint you with some of the occurrences of the present past and future ..."[27] and ends with a threat: neglect this and abide by the consequences, which shall be worse than the rust in the wheat in Victoria or the druth of a dry season to the grasshoppers in New South Wales I do not wish to give the order full force without giving timely warning but I am a widows son outlawed and my orders must be obeyed.
[29] Kelly condemns the British monarchy and, in "an escalating promise of revenge and retribution", invokes "a mythical tradition of Irish rebellion" against what he calls "the tyrannism of the English yoke":[25][32] It will pay Government to give those people who are suffering innocence, justice and liberty.
If not I will be compelled to show some colonial strategm which will open the eyes of not only the Victoria Police and inhabitants but also the whole British army and no doubt they will acknowledge their hounds were barking at the wrong stump and that Fitzpatrick will be the cause of greater slaughter to the Union Jack than Saint Patrick was to the snakes and toads in Ireland.In describing the brutalisation of Irish convicts in Australia, Kelly paraphrases lines from "A Convict's Tour of Hell" and "The Convict's Lament on the Death of Captain Logan", poems attributed to Frank the Poet (Francis MacNamara), a convict who was imprisoned in Port Arthur, Van Diemen's Land (modern-day Tasmania) at the same time as John "Red" Kelly, Ned's father.
[1][13] After Kelly’s trial in October 1880 and execution on 11 November 1880 the letter was returned to Living and it remained in private hands until it was donated to the State Library of Victoria in 2000.
[19][38] At the end of its synopsis published on Friday 21 February 1879, the Burra Record (South Australia) concluded: There is a boastful intemperate tone throughout the letter ...
While Reisz found most books about Kelly to be of poor quality, he considered the Jerilderie Letter the work of a "tormented visionary" and a "wonderful psychopathic poet".
It is an extraordinary document, the passionate voice of a man who is writing to explain his life, save his life, his reputation … And all the time there is this original voice - uneducated but intelligent, funny and then angry, and with a line of Irish invective that would have made Paul Keating envious.
