Joe Byrne - Modern Discoveries

Modern Discoveries

In September 2006, Darren Sutton (a Beechworth miner, fossicker, historian and tourist guide) found a piece of armour believed to be an offcut from Joe Byrne's armour in bushland near Beechworth in country Victoria. The armour is thought to have been created by local blacksmith Charlie Knight and friend Thomas Straughair for the Kelly Gang.

According to Heritage Victoria this is not considered to be from the same metal as the suit of armour made for Joe Byrne.

However, the information used to make the decision on whether the offcut matched or not has been found to be inaccurate. The reason given by Heritage Victoria was that Joe's suit contained large amounts of lead, and the piece found in the bush contains no lead, so they cannot be the same. The test results from Ansto clearly state that the lead found on Joes suit was from a bullet impact, made after World War I. The bullet impression contains lead, tin and tungsten. Tungsten was only used post World War I in ballistics. The metal piece found in the bush contains no lead because it was removed from the suit, using a chisel, which has also been recovered, prior to being worn at Glenrowan. The breastplate was too long and impeded Joe's movement, and probably prevented him easily mounting a horse, or walking freely. Further testing, and analysis of previous test results is now being undertaken independently and the results will be published some time between August and October 2010.