The True Story of Ned Kelly's Last Stand by Paul Terry

Author:Paul Terry [Terry, Paul]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: HIS004000, book
ISBN: 9781743430033
Publisher: Allen and Unwin
Published: 2012-07-24T14:00:00+00:00

Gary Dean worked as a volunteer on the inn excavation. Although it quickly became clear that there was no cellar under the front rooms of the inn, he began to wonder about a square of concrete over the area of the western bedroom—the very place where the charred bodies of two people were found after the fire. Roughly two metres by two metres, the twentieth-century concrete slab appeared to be a lid over a depression in the ground. Adam Ford called in the excavator to break up the slab. If it masked a hidden cellar, it would be instantly clear to the archaeologists. When the concrete was removed, however, all that was left was a shallow, gravel-filled bowl. Clearly, it was not a cellar.

It could be said with certainty that there had been no cellar below the five rooms of the inn but that did not mean there was no cellar at all. If there was one, then it may have been under the kitchen—the oldest building on the site and the most obvious place to store perishable food. The inability of the dig to rule a cellar in or out leaves open the tantalising possibility that there was indeed an amazing escape. It is a story that is nearly as old as the siege itself and it has a powerful persistence. It has always bubbled away, sometimes following different paths, but usually returning to the core elements of cellar, flight and Queensland. Truth can be stranger than fiction and it is possible to imagine Dan and Steve huddled at the bottom of Ann’s cellar as her home burned above them. We could see them spirited away by night, cared for and protected by friends until finally they could slip away into the outback anonymity of life as Aussie bushmen. It would be a secretive and lonely life and with the threat of a rope around their necks there could be no return. Because the story keeps occurring it is worth examining.

The first person to see the bodies in the bedroom was the Western Australian Catholic priest Father Mathew Gibney. One of the bravest men in the Kelly story, he was travelling by rail through Glenrowan on 28 June when he heard about the siege. He learned there was no Catholic priest there and decided to see if he could save lives or souls. He arrived at about midday, by which time most of the hostages had been released, but Dan and Steve were still holding the police at bay. By then, Ned had been captured and was lying wounded in the stationmaster’s office. Gibney was able to see him there and asked if it was safe to broker a truce. Ned said it was not, ‘as his comrades might shoot without stopping to think’. Soon after that, the police decided to set fire to the inn. As The Argus later reported, the priest was horrified.

When the house was fired his feelings revolted. He wished . . . the building might not take fire .

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