Growing up near Chinese mining camps, Byrne became fluent in Cantonese and addicted to opium, and in later years was even mistakenly assumed to be part-Chinese.

Through his childhood friend Aaron Sherritt, Byrne became an associate of the Greta Mob, a larrikin gang that counted brothers Ned and Dan Kelly among its members.

Despite wearing bulletproof armour in the ensuing shootout, Byrne was fatally shot while making a toast in the hotel bar, his final words being, "Many more years in the bush for the Kelly gang!"

Byrne was known for his literary talents, writing out the Jerilderie Letter and other documents on behalf of Ned, and composing bush ballads about the gang.

[citation needed] Margaret was an indentured servant for Nathaniel Stephen Powell, an Irish-born grazier and the local magistrate for Bungendore, near modern-day Canberra.

Byrne made his first appearance in court in 1871 on the charge of illegally using a horse, and had to pay a fine of 20 shillings to avoid going to jail.

Joe Byrne was present at Stringybark Creek with the Kelly brothers and Steve Hart on 26 October 1878 when they surprised a patrol of four police officers on their trail, with three of them shot dead.

Joe Byrne frequently visited his mother at her house in Beechworth and was also seen carousing in bars in the town, despite having a price on his head.

The Victorian Government eventually increased the reward for capture of a member of the Kelly Gang to £8,000 (equivalent to two million Australian dollars in 2005).

Byrne wrote letters to Sherritt, inviting him to join the gang, but grew increasingly wary of his former friend, and murdered him at his hut in the Woolshed Valley on 26 June 1880.

Byrne shoot into the room and threatened to burn the hut down before riding off with Dan Kelly to meet the other gang members at Glenrowan.

That night, the gang took over Glenrowan, first tearing up the railway line in anticipation of a special trainload of police being sent to capture them after news of Sherritt's murder spread.

Thomas Curnow, the schoolmaster of the local school who had won Kelly's trust, escaped and warned the train crew who in turn told the police.

After Ned Kelly's last stand and capture, the police set fire to the Glenrowan Inn and retrieved Byrne's body before the hotel was consumed by flames.

The wax figure had on Byrne's boots from the siege, which were still stained with his blood and initially displayed in the windows of the museum on Bourke Street.

[5] His family did not claim the body, and the police refused to hand it over to sympathisers, fearing a funeral would become a rallying point for the simmering rebellion.