Anatomy of a Kelly Myth

Not all of the myths that make up the Kelly legend are untruths that everyone has heard of, like the one about Fitzpatrick being the cause of the Outbreak, or the one about Ned Kelly’s  Republic of North East Victoria, or the one that reckons holding Hostages at the Glenrowan Inn while waiting for two dozen Police to be killed at a planned train wreck nearby constitutes a ‘heroic last stand’. These Big Lies, and a few others, such as the one that says Ned Kelly was picked on and persecuted by Police make up the bulk of the Kelly Mythology, and they are so well known that even people who are not familiar enough with the story to be able to name the policemen killed at SBC would have heard of them, and often believe them to be true.

There are however innumerable other smaller lies that are part of the Kelly mythology that only people who have a more detailed knowledge of the Kelly story would have ever heard about. This includes such things as Ned Kelly’s claim to have been hundreds of miles away at the time of the Fitzpatrick incident, that he robbed the rich to give to the poor, that Fitzpatrick raped Kate Kelly or that being kept hostage by the Kelly gang wasn’t a terrifying nightmare for genuine hostages. Another one of these lies is the claim made by Kelly sympathisers that the police are to be blamed for the loss of innocent life during the siege at Glenrowan.

It would be mad to deny that innocent people were killed at Glenrowan by Police bullets. Two of the hostages, Martin Cherry and Johnny Jones died from bullet wounds on the day of the siege. It was also claimed that George Metcalf was hit in the eye by a police bullet and died several months later of complications that were linked to the eye injury sustained during the siege. However, when something similar happened at the Lindt Café siege in Sydney in 2014, and an innocent hostage was killed when the police brought that siege to an end, the coroner took great pains to direct all of the blame for the loss of life at the criminal gunman. Equally,  the moral responsibility for every outcome of the Glenrowan hostage taking again must lie with the person who was the mastermind and principle actor in it, Ned Kelly.

In regard to George Metcalfs death, Metcalf himself said the eye injury had been caused by a ricochet from a police bullet, or splinters of wood or brick that the bullet sent flying into his eye as he sought shelter near a fireplace at the Inn. However, in the latest of his series of devastating critques of Kelly myths, Monash historian Dr Stuart Dawson  shows that it wasn’t a police bullet but Ned Kelly who was directly responsible for Metcalf’s injury and its complications. I first read this claim on the first page of Ian MacFarlane’s book The Kelly Gang Unmasked, and later in the book MacFarlane describes how Metcalf invented the story to get help he would otherwise have been unable to afford. The injury, it was revealed after investigation, had been caused by a revolver that Ned Kelly accidentally discharged while fiddling with it earlier on in the day, before the siege had begun.

Dawsons article supplies all the detailed documentary proof that debunks the Kelly myth that it was a police bullet that injured Metcalf.  As I have written already, in my view Ned Kelly is responsible for Metcalfs eye injury no matter whose bullet caused it. However the actual historical truth about what happened to Metcalf needs to be recorded accurately, and the truth is that it was Ned Kelly who directly and carelessly caused this poor mans horrific injury.

However I think perhaps more importantly than just the historical truths, using the Metcalf story as an example, Dawson exposes the way in which  Kelly myths are created. This myth, like all of them was created and sustained by pro-Kelly writers who preferred to perpetuate stories that support their preconceived notions about Ned Kelly than follow the evidence to its proper conclusion.

According to Dawson, Metcalf is not mentioned in any Kelly history until his name appeared in  not the first or second but the the third edition of Max Browns “Australian Son” in 1980. To attribute Metcalfs injury to a police bullet, Brown must have ignored, or not known about the police reports of investigations into Metcalfs claim, and comments of Inspector Sadleir recorded in the report of the Royal Commission that showed his story was made up. In his 1980 book “Ned Kelly” Molony simply repeated  Browns claim, but in ‘A Short Life’ published in 1995 Ian Jones revealed he was familiar with those reports and with the Royal Commission because he quoted from them. However,  Dawson reveals that the way Ian Jones quoted, misquoted and misrepresented those reports is  nothing short of an outrage, and absolutely disgraceful. Jones quotes half of a sentence from a Police report that appears to support Metcalfs story but ignores the rest of the same sentence where the Detective dismisses Metcalfs story and states his injury occurred before the siege began. Dawson provides lots of detail, and traces Jones claims forwards into Justin Corfields ‘Ned Kelly Encyclopaedia’, and from those two sources it has spread like a virus throughout the entire Kelly world, unchallenged until MacFarlane in 2012 and now comprehensively by Dawson.

Adherents to the Jones-Kelly mythology refuse to read MacFarlane’s book – such is their collective refusal to face the truth – and  even the Kelly fancier who moderates a Facebook Page attacking it has never read it -  so I doubt they will read Dawson’s article or respond to it with anything other than their usual personal abuse, juvenile name calling and outright denial. I do anticipate however that some of them might claim that the police must have known Metcalf’s injury was their fault because the police paid for Metcalf’s medical bills and arranged for his treatment. They will construct conspiracy theories about police trying to keep it quiet and protect their reputation. The facts however, which are always fatal when applied to conspiracy theory are that Chief Commissioner Standish himself approved of the treatment though he knew how the injuries had been caused, writing “I consider that under the circumstances of the way he met his injuries, the patient referred to who is utterly without means is a fit case for the charity”

Metcalf grew up in poverty and ended his life destitute. Like many people in his day, poor people included, he was shafted by the Kellys, but he did at least receive ‘charity’ from the Police. 

To read Dr Dawsons latest article go HERE. As usual, its a great and 

scholarly read that destroys yet one more of the seemingly innumerable

falsities that constitute the Kelly legends. Keep up the great work Stuart!