Ned Kelly's armour
Ned Kelly’s iron armour is a defining part of his story. All four members of the Kelly gang – Ned, his brother Dan, and their friends Joe Byrne and Steve Hart, wore armoured suits in their final confrontation with the police at Glenrowan in June 1880. Ned was the only gang member to survive the siege.
The armour is constructed from farm machinery. Historians have speculated that the parts may have been stolen or gifted, and that the armour was forged by blacksmiths who may have been sympathetic to the gang. But these ideas remain unconfirmed.
While Ned Kelly’s armour was in the care of The Institute of Applied Sciences, now part of Museums Victoria, an assistant director there asked, ‘Why should we revere a convicted murderer?’ and so in 1965 the armour was taken off view and transferred to the care of the Library. That question frames a debate now more than 100 years old. After all this time, it continues to describe the unsettled complexity of this story. The Library is one custodian of Victoria’s memory and somewhere to debate what, how and why we tell stories about our past and how we remember ourselves to the future.