Ned Kelly on Trial
"Such is life."
There is some conjecture about the Australian outlaw Ned Kelly's final words on the gallows at the Old Melbourne Gaol. Most like to think he made the very Stoic remark quoted above. Some report a more prosaic, "Oh well, I suppose it has come to this". We do know his mother's final words to him though, "Mind you die like a Kelly son." And he did.
Some months earlier (on the morning of the 28 June, 1880) Ned Kelly had walked out of the house in Glenrowan where the police had laid siege, dressed in his famous self-made armour. The air was filling with smoke as the police had set fire to the house. The other outlaws were all dead. This was Ned's last stand. In the end they brought him down with a bullet to an unprotected leg.
This is the final four works in Australian Modernist painter Sidney Nolan's "Ned Kelly Series" (1946-47). artsandculture.google.com/theme/sidney-nolan-and-his-ned-...
The symbolism of Kelly's armour is so great that Nolan even portrays him in the courtroom with helmet on. The judge was the original hanging judge of Victoria, Sir Redmond Barry. There's a building named after him at the nearby University of Melbourne. But an exchange between Kelly and the judge is truly famous. When passing sentence of death by hanging, Barry uttered the well known words, "May God have mercy on your soul". Quick as a flash Kelly shouted, "I will go a little further than that, and say I will see you there where I go". In other words, "See you in hell."
Sir Redmond Barry died suddenly on 23 November 1880, less than one month after passing sentence on Ned Kelly.
P.S. It is another strange fact that Mick Jagger (yes, of the Rolling Stones) played Ned Kelly in a 1970 version of the story.
Here is a clip of the famous final courtroom scene.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUcER281BOg
Not exactly Mick's finest work.
Ned Kelly on Trial
"Such is life."
There is some conjecture about the Australian outlaw Ned Kelly's final words on the gallows at the Old Melbourne Gaol. Most like to think he made the very Stoic remark quoted above. Some report a more prosaic, "Oh well, I suppose it has come to this". We do know his mother's final words to him though, "Mind you die like a Kelly son." And he did.
Some months earlier (on the morning of the 28 June, 1880) Ned Kelly had walked out of the house in Glenrowan where the police had laid siege, dressed in his famous self-made armour. The air was filling with smoke as the police had set fire to the house. The other outlaws were all dead. This was Ned's last stand. In the end they brought him down with a bullet to an unprotected leg.
This is the final four works in Australian Modernist painter Sidney Nolan's "Ned Kelly Series" (1946-47). artsandculture.google.com/theme/sidney-nolan-and-his-ned-...
The symbolism of Kelly's armour is so great that Nolan even portrays him in the courtroom with helmet on. The judge was the original hanging judge of Victoria, Sir Redmond Barry. There's a building named after him at the nearby University of Melbourne. But an exchange between Kelly and the judge is truly famous. When passing sentence of death by hanging, Barry uttered the well known words, "May God have mercy on your soul". Quick as a flash Kelly shouted, "I will go a little further than that, and say I will see you there where I go". In other words, "See you in hell."
Sir Redmond Barry died suddenly on 23 November 1880, less than one month after passing sentence on Ned Kelly.
P.S. It is another strange fact that Mick Jagger (yes, of the Rolling Stones) played Ned Kelly in a 1970 version of the story.
Here is a clip of the famous final courtroom scene.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUcER281BOg
Not exactly Mick's finest work.