Author: David

Ian Jones was regarded as Australia’s ‘foremost Kelly expert’, and even though he had a long career writing and directing many popular TV series, it’s his role as a champion of the bushranger Ned Kelly that he will mostly be remembered for. His influence on the existing body of Kellyana was huge, and since he […]

Ian Jones re-invented the Kelly story about fifty years ago by inserting into it the vision of a Republic of North East Victoria, transforming Ned Kellys life story and the history of the Outbreak from a murderous tale of colonial criminality into a much more appealing morality tale.  This new view became the new orthodoxy, […]

The other day the seemingly endless torrent of Kelly-related trivia that streams past on the Best Bloody Man FB page was interrupted momentarily by a link to a curious article about the Jerilderie Letter: “Outlaw Ned Kelly left behind a manifesto for the Ages” by left wing journalist Daniel Lopez. If it was hoped an […]

 “The story of Ned Kelly” by Marie-Ève de Grave (text) and Jean-Jaques de Grave (linocut etchings). Five Mile Press, October 2020. Reviewed by Stuart. Browsing my library’s catalogue I spotted this recent illustrated book and thought I should have a look at how the Kelly story was being presented in France in 2017.This 2020 English translation sells […]

Quite apart from both being policemen, Sergeant Steele and Constable Fitzpatrick have several other important things in common, not the least of which is that for decades their memories have been completely trashed and dragged through the mud by Kelly admirers. Kelly sympathisers won’t ever concede this fact, blinded as they are to truth by […]

On PROV the other day I came across the Report made by Constable Arthur about what he did during the Siege at Glenrowan.  Its dated July 2nd 1880.  I have copied it out in its entirety:   North Eastern District Benalla Police Station 2nd July 1880   Report of Constable Arthur 2971 relative to the […]

ABOVE : Ned Kelly Sympathisers lined up in front of the now officially debunked “Kennedy Tree”   In 2019, a group of four amateur historians calling themselves the Kennedy Tree Group announced in a media campaign that they believed they had found the actual tree beside which Ned Kelly murdered Sgt Michael Kennedy in 1878. […]

Ive decided to do a third Blog post about Steele, but the point of this Post is not so much to add to what is already written about Steele, but to use this saga to illustrate the way in which visitors to these Ned Kelly-related Facebook pages are being misinformed by people purporting to be […]

In my last Blog post I explained how Sgt Steeles image has been falsely smeared by Kelly writers who only gave half of the story of his involvement at Glenrowan. They all salaciously repeated the allegation Constable Arthur made at the Royal Commission that Steele had gleefully announced that he had shot ‘mother Jones in […]

In the Kelly sympathiser world, only Constable Alexander Fitzpatrick is hated more than Sergeant Arthur Loftus Maule Steele.  What people seem to remember most about him, apart from his weird middle names, and what people despise him mostly for is that at the siege at Glenrowan, in a state of excitable blood lust he was […]