I wrote this for Facebook but it ended up too long…..so…enjoy!
Am I the only observer who has noticed that the windbag Kelly conspiracy theorist Stuart Rowsell is exposing the Kelly sympathiser community as seriously ignorant and completely spineless? Not a single one of them has dared to challenge his recent prolific advancement of a lunatic, completely evidence and fact free theory about what Ned Kelly planned for Glenrowan! Is that because they’re too scared to challenge the argumentative bully, or because they are so ignorant of the basis for the claim he is challenging that they have no idea how to respond?
Roswell’s delusion – as in all things – is that he is right and everyone else is wrong. According to Rowsell, actual experts and historians like Jones, Moloney, McQuilton, Brown, and McMenomy are wrong, virtually every Kelly sympathiser on the planet, as well as people who think Kelly was a maniac are wrong, and lets not forget the many people who were actually there at Glenrowan in 1880 – they were wrong too, to believe Kelly planned to wreck the special police train and kill survivors at Glenrowan – virtually everyone for over 140 years who ever tried analysing the Outbreak got it wrong!
According to Rowsell, Kellys plan was not to wreck the train but to stop it, surround it with sympathisers, and for the Gang, clad in armour, to clamber aboard, shoot it up and take police hostage. The rails were only taken up in case the train failed to stop when ordered, and would be replaced once it did. Next, the train would be taken to nearby towns to rob the banks. The money would be used to pay off sympathisers and the hostages would be traded for the release from prison of Mrs Kelly and other friends of the family. Next, says Rowsell “I always believed a Train load of the Kelly Gang and a guerrilla force of sympathisers heading to Melbourne in an attempted coup was the final part of the plan”.
This scenario is bonkers…..and yet not one Kelly sympathizer has dared challenge it! In fact, the opposite had happened – lead sympathizer morons have instead hailed Rowsell as ‘meticulous, compelling’ ( Peterson) ‘cannot be dismissed ( the toad) ‘the leading player in modern research of the Kelly outbreak’ (Barton) and ‘Stuart’s research skills and info presented this far has given me pause for thought’ (Perry). Research skill? Where?Meticulous? Info? What ‘info’??
What the hell is the matter with these people? This isn’t research, its not meticulous, theres no ‘info’ its just wild speculation, its pure conjecture, and its very badly thought out, its not supported by a single fact or statement of anyone’s, and contradicts all the known evidence about the Gangs intentions. It belongs in the bin.
The evidence in support of the traditional view is overwhelming : Kellys own statements included warnings about the railway, witnesses testified that Kelly himself said that he would overturn the train if his mother wasn’t released, the rails were lifted at an especially dangerous place on the line where a spectacular and calamitous derailment would be unavoidable, there’s a report that tree branches and bushes were laid to stop the driver seeing the damaged line, Curnow testified that Kelly and other gang members told him the plan was to wreck the train…which was why he ran up the line to stop it.
There is also the fact that nobody ever mentioned anything about exactly HOW it was to be stopped, and no Kelly gang member made any attempt to see to it that the train WOULD be stopped…the gang simply waited, keeping anyone imprisoned who they thought might have warned the train, as it rushed north toward the concealed broken line….and inevitably, what Jones rightly said would have been a “criminal atrocity”.
As we all know Rowsell knows a hell of a lot more than Ian Jones ever did but it’s worth reading what else Jones wrote on the subject : he called claims like this one of Roswell’s “cover stories” and wrote ( in ASL)
“…they demand great gullibility. Why break the line half a mile past Glenrowan on an embankment when the police train could be stopped by closing the level crossing gates just before the station and showing a red flag or signal light? As a failsafe measure , rails could be lifted on the straight, level stretch of line just past the station, derailing the train without wrecking it.
Breaking the line past the town on the curving embankment over the gully, opening the crossing gates and forbidding the use of a stop signal as they did, shows that the Gang intended a decisive first strike”
Lastly, just to remind everyone once again what a completely delusional character Rowsell is, and how little he cares for consistency or integrity when it comes to discussing the Outbreak, here’s something he posted last year for Dave Whites benefit :
“Any one can have an opinion … i just want to see that opinion backed with evidence – i am sick of opinions dressed as facts. I always try and attach my opinion with evidence – but others don’t – they just say ‘trust me’ … i am sick of that BS …. i get you we have discussed this 1000 times – how many more times do we discuss this shit!!???? All I want is the discussion backed with verifiable evidence and not a ‘trust me’ bollocks …”
Yeah, right!
It really is hilarious how they bow down to him, even he must think it’s funny.
Rowsell (and his creepy vibe) reminds me more and more of Charles Manson.
David Mac, take note. Most of us are too afraid to engage or ‘challenge’ as you would put it, simply based on the fact that the co-conspirators will attack with their vile brainwashing attempt to sway us over .
Rowsell enjoys bombarding readers with his nonsensical approach to convince us he is far more intelligent and knowledgeable than you and I. Rowsells denial and his refusal to accept other views is beyond my comprehension. He’s obviously competing with the Toad for recognition and the pedestal of greatness. Thus far they both have failed miserably.
All they have achieved is dividing a community of open-minded folks with a passion for history and learning.
Barton the red headed alien freak alongside the Toad, Jager the bodyguard and failed historian with the two-faced Perry lying imbecile eat up every bit of the word salad Rowsell dishes out and without making him accountable for harvesting the lies and the myths he’s creating.
Roswell, and his co-conspirators are way too dumb, thick headed and naïve to see they have wronged history.
Hi David, from what I can see the above story of Kelly’s intentions seems to be a creative expansion of parts of his Condemed Cell letter of 3 November 1880 where Kelly is trying to justify his actions (against all documented facts, including those you listed above). The letter is VPRS 4966 Unit 2 Item 10, and is in a couple of books including Kelvin Gill’s Historical Record. The letter says nothing about rails being intended to be taken up only if the train didn’t stop or about them being planned to be replaced afterwards.
It is just a last-ditch Kelly fantasy claim that his intention was not wholesale slaughter. It was written only a week before he was hanged. The three Condemned Cell letters are self-contradictory in places; he reads as quite unhinged. Perhaps in a modern trial he might have pleaded insanity? But given the amount of preparation and planning involving a group of co-criminals I don’t think he would have succeeded if it had been attempted.
Ther evidence is abundantly clear that no such fantasy plan lay behind anything Kelly did at the time. Plenty of people held prisoner in the Inn including Curnow knew and subsequently stated exactly what Kelly was attempting.