December 1854
November 11, 1880

Robber and Bandit

The Australian equivalent of Jesse James, Ned Kelly was a bank-robbing outlaw who became a folk hero in his own time and after. Also likened to Robin Hood, his story lives on in art, literature, and film.

Irish transplants in the land of convicts

Kelly was born in December 1854 in Beveridge, Victoria, in the southeastern corner of the continent of Australia. Melbourne, then the capital of the colony of Victoria, lay 25 miles (40 kilometers) to the south. Also south of Beveridge was an area known as Van Diemen’s Land, also called Tasmania—a onetime penal (prison) colony where male and female prisoners were transported from the British Isles to live. Kelly’s father, John “Red” Kelly, a native of Tipperary, Ireland, was one such convict, having been transported to Van Diemen’s Land to serve...