One year later, the family moved once again, to a two-room hut on leased land at nearby Eleven Mile Creek, becoming one of the growing number of poor, Catholic and Irish born selectors in the area, limited to the marginal land that was not already claimed by wealthy squatters in the area.

The local police/ex-convicts paid attention to the vulnerable and widowed Ellen Kelly with small children, the Lloyds and the Quinns, persecuting those struggling families with numerous trumped-up charges.

She remained on there for most of her life although she had trouble at times paying her rent as the plot was of unsustainable poor land, being too small to be viable.

Across the vast spaces of the colony, livestock was frequently stolen by vagrants, those on the way to mines or diggings, or even police with their own ex-convict connections.

When there were stock thefts, the police found it convenient to frame the junior Kelly's rather than "find" the real culprits.

Fitzpatrick demanded that Kate Kelly, Ned's sister, who was 14 at the time, should serve him the meal, and sexually assaulted her.

Ned Kelly was later proven to be many miles distant at the time, but this was no hindrance to Fitzpatrick creating a good cover story for his drunken infringements and assault.

In his first meeting with his lawyer William Zincke, before his committal hearing, Kelly said "in consequence of the tyranny of the police he had been compelled to take up arms to protect his family and sisters".

Ned and his brother Dan fled to the Wombat Ranges, where a few months later stumbled upon a heavily armed police party sent to ambush them.

With their mother in prison and their brothers on the run, young Kate Kelly and her sister Margaret looked after the younger children.

The Royal Commission conveniently discarded the report and unsurprisingly took no further action against police alleged to be involved, who continued to act with impunity.

Kelly collected signatures for a petition of clemency and later presented them with a personal appeal to the Governor, the Marquis of Normanby.

Ned Kelly was just 24 when he was hanged, and despite limited schooling, was probably a highly intellectual and articulate writer against the right of the wealthy privileged few to oppress the masses.

The handsome intelligent Ned has a quiet dignity, hiding his massive injuries, his broken hand posed on his hip, for the photo.

Kate had tried to seek justice for her outlawed brothers, suffered repeated incidents of police harassment and brutality at her home while her mother was in prison serving a lengthy-term, she sought Ned's clemency in a public campaign in Melbourne, to no avail, and was clearly mentally and physically exhausted by the end of 1880.

An expert horsewoman and possessed of a singular style and presence, the young Kate Kelly then confronted the rest of her life, aged 17.

After Ned's execution in November 1880, Kelly and her brother Jim toured Victoria and NSW showing what newspapers of the day called "an exhibition of relics of the oppression conflicts".

She worked briefly as a barmaid at Hill Scott's Hotel in southern Adelaide, before her waning health forced her to return home.

Their marriage may not have been a happy one; on 20 May 1898 Foster appeared on charges of "using indecent language" while addressing his wife within the "hearing of the public" and he was fined.

The couple do not seem to have lived together for the next five months, as Foster was reported to have been visiting his wife the night before her disappearance, before returning to the station he worked at.

[3] On 5 October 1898, Kelly visited a neighbour, asking her to write a message for her, and look after the children, including Catherine.

[8]In the 2003 film Ned Kelly, starring Heath Ledger, Kate is played by Irish actor Kerry Condon.

[9]Australian rock band, The Whitlams, included a song about her, "Kate Kelly" on the 2002 album Torch the Moon.

It was claimed to be the revolver carried by Constable Fitzpatrick when attempting to arrest Dan at the Kelly house on the night of 15 April 1878, and which was wrestled off him by her brother, Ned.

[13][14][15] The revolver was auctioned on Tuesday, 13 November 2007, where it sold to a private collector for A$72,870, narrowly beating a rival bidder representing the State of Victoria.