Black Bunny's Bushrangers (T) - Ned Kelly - Benalla. Benalla, Victoria, Australia
By Black Bunny on 08-Oct-18. Waypoint GA6033

Bushranger Series - Ned Kelly Benalla.

Benalla. 

Here you can see the boot maker’s shop in Arundel Street where Ned hid after being charged with drunkenness and riding his horse on the footpath!  When he gave himself up to Constable Fitzpatrick after a fracas he was taken in handcuffs across the road to the old court house.  Ned's cell is situated behind the building and is open to the public.

A short drive/walk away is the Costume & Pioneer Museum, it's situated just over the bridge at Lake Benalla adjacent to the Benalla mural. The museum houses some fabulous artefacts associated with the Kelly era, one of the most interesting is the bloodstained silk cummerbund Ned was wearing when he was captured at Glenrowan. The portable cell which held Ned on his journey to Melbourne by train is also here.

At Benalla cemetery you'll find the graves of many people linked to the Kelly period, Joseph Byrne, Martin Cherry, Dr Nicholson who treated Ned and took his cummerbund are all here.

Bushrangers.

Over 2,000 bushrangers are estimated to have roamed the Australian countryside, beginning with the convict bolters and drawing to a close after Ned Kelly's last stand at Glenrowan.

Bushrangers were originally escaped convicts who had the survival skills necessary to use the Australian bush as a refuge to hide from the authorities. By the 1820s, the term "bushranger" had evolved to refer to those who abandoned social rights and privileges to take up "robbery under arms" as a way of life, using the bush as their base.

Bushranging thrived during the gold rush years of the 1850s and 1860s when the likes of Ben Hall, Frank Gardiner and John Gilbert led notorious gangs in the country districts of New South Wales. These Wild Colonial Boys typically robbed small-town banks and coach services.

In other infamous cases, such as that of Dan Morgan, the Clarke brothers, and Australia's best-known bushranger, Ned Kelly, numerous policemen were murdered.

The number of bushrangers declined due to better policing and improvements in rail transport and communication technology, such as telegraphy. Kelly's capture and execution in 1880 effectively represented the end of the bushranging era.

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bushranger & https://nedkellytouringroute.com.au/destinations/avenel/

Hints