Curnow then headed to the railway line and, as the train approached, he improvised a warning signal using a lit candle behind a red scarf.

Due to his role in the gang's demise, Curnow received death threats from Kelly sympathisers, and the Victorian government subsequently relocated him and his family to Ballarat, where he spent the rest of his life.

Among the claimants for the £8,000 bounty on the gang's heads, Curnow received the largest portion with £1,000, and was awarded the Victorian Humane Society's annual medal for bravery.

Today, Curnow is a relatively obscure figure in Australian history, overshadowed by the widespread fame of the Kelly gang.

Curnow was born on 4 June 1855 at Gwennap, Cornwall, to Thomas, who worked as a copper miner, and Ann (née Trewartha).

At around 11 am on 27 June 1880, Curnow was driving his buggy through Glenrowan, accompanied by his pregnant wife and baby daughter, his sister Catherine and his brother-in-law David Mortimer.

"[4] Kelly and his gang had been outlawed in 1878 for murdering three policemen, and were also wanted for raiding towns and robbing banks in Victoria and New South Wales.

The night prior to holding up the Curnows, gang member Joe Byrne murdered police informer Aaron Sherritt, near Beechworth.

Dan and Byrne told Curnow that a special police train was on its way to Beechworth to pick up the gang's trail after word of Sherritt's murder got out.

The outlaws sabotaged a section of the track that ran at an incline, where the train would be travelling at 100 km/h (60 mph) before falling down a steep embankment.

On hearing their intentions I determined that if I could by any means whatever baulk their designs and prevent such a sacrifice of human life, I would do so.Curnow also learned that, after derailing and ambushing the train, the gang planned to raid Benalla.

As the hours passed without sight of the train, the outlaws staged sporting games and held dances to keep the hostages entertained.

On the way, they would have to pass the police barracks, Curnow hoping that the town policeman, Constable Hugh Bracken, would see Ned and raise the alarm.

First he arranged for Steve Hart's sore feet to be soaked in warm water, then helped Dan search for a missing parcel, as he "seemed very anxious about it".

[8] At 2:30 pm, word of Sherritt's murder finally reached Superintendent Francis Augustus Hare, who led the hunt for the Kelly gang out of Benalla.

[9] It finally left Spencer Street station for Beechworth at 10 pm, taking on board four journalists and Sub-Inspector O'Connor with his wife, sister-in-law and five Aboriginal trackers.

Ned however, advised him "not to dream too loud" when he went to bed, and said an outlaw would check in on them later that night, intimating that they would be shot if there was any sign that they had betrayed the gang.

[17] The Minister of Education, Robert Ramsay, praised Curnow's actions as highly meritorious, emphasising that had he not flagged down the train, many lives would have been lost.

[17] By early July, Curnow had relocated to his hometown of Ballarat, where he was invited to appear on the balcony of the Mechanics' Institute; surrounding businesses temporarily closed and some 400 to 500 people gathered in the street to applaud him.

Curnow initially received £550 but appealed for more, pointing out that his family had suffered financially from the forced relocation and that £550 barely covered his losses, including the pay cut he had taken teaching at a new school in Ballarat.

[19][20] The colonial press supported Curnow's protest,[21] and according to The Argus, "ninety-nine men out of a hundred will, we are sure, agree that the substantial donation should be awarded to the schoolmaster instead of the police officer.

"[24] Despite having left "Kelly Country", Curnow continued to receive death threats, and he told one reporter in 1881 that even in Ballarat, he and his wife "[lived] in a state of constant watchfulness and expectation of something injurious being done to us.

[1] One visitor to the lodge, the "Vagabond" (Julian Thomas), found Curnow to be an unassuming yet quietly dignified man who evinced a "true moral power which, in moments of real danger, is so superior to mere brute force".

It is one of our great inversions.In most plays and films about the Kelly gang, Curnow is a minor character—often depicted, according to Geoffrey Robertson, as "an ugly, elderly pedant, a caricature dobber-inner".

In a 1949 article attacking Ned Kelly hagiography, Sydney journalist James Taylor wrote that Curnow "was, as far as I have been able to discover, the only man to show the slightest initiative during the whole costly chase".

[33] In 1973, when a plaque was unveiled marking the spot where Kelly had the railway tracks torn up, journalist Keith Dunstan argued: "Actually, Curnow, the schoolteacher who risked death to warn the train, is the man who deserved a mention in bronze.