Dan Kelly (bushranger)

Dan Kelly (bushranger)

Dan Kelly (1861 – 28 June 1880) was an Australian bushranger and outlaw. The son of an Irish convict, he was the youngest brother of the bushranger, Ned Kelly. Dan and his brother killed three policemen. With two friends, they formed the Kelly Gang. Dan Kelly died during the famous siege of Glenrowan.

More books have been written about the Kelly Gang than any other subject in Australian history. The Kelly Gang were the subject of the world's first full length feature movie, The Story of the Kelly Gang, made in 1906. They robbed banks, took over whole towns, kept the people in Victoria and New South Wales frightened. For two years the Victorian police searched for them, locked up their friends and families, but could not find them.

Despite his body being identified by police and a priest before being burnt, there have been many stories about what might have happened during the Glenrowan siege. It is possible they may have killed themselves. This was the story that was used in the first Kelly film, The Story of the Kelly Gang in 1906, and in the 2003 Ned Kelly movie. There have also been stories that both survived the fire. There is little evidence to support these claims. One man, James Ryan, said he was Dan Kelly. In 1934 he went on stage at the Brisbane Exhibition and told stories about the Kelly Gang. He died on 29 July 1948, after being struck by a train. The Ipswich City Council have put a memorial on his grave. In 2001, scientists took a small piece of bone from the grave of Charles Devine Tindall at Toowoomba, Queensland, to see if they could find DNA to prove he was Dan Kelly. Devine, who had burn scars on his body, told his family he was really Dan. He said he had hidden under the floor of the Glenrowan hotel and escaped after the fire. In October 1902, a Melbourne newspaper printed a story that Dan Kelly and Steve Hart were living in South Africa. The men had fought in the Boer War. Another man, Jim Davis from Darra (a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland), said in 1938 that he was Dan Kelly. He claimed that he, Steve Hart and Joe Byrne had escaped from the hotel. He also said he was born at the Eureka Stockade in 1854, which makes him too old to have really been Dan.