Last modified on 21 November 2015, at 00:51

Cookson, 12 09 1911 3

12 September 1911

(full text transcription)

THE LAST OF THE IRONCLADS Ned Kelly met his doom at 10 o'clock on the morning of November 11, 1880, at the Melbourne Gaol.

In his account of the execution ex-Superintendent Hare declares, on the authority of an official who was present, that it was seldom a man on the gallows had shown so little pluck, and that if it had not been for his priest, who kept him up, he would not have been able to walk to the gallows. That is not true. Kelly was game to the last. When the sheriff visited his cell, the doomed man said: "You need not pinion me, I will go quietly." All the same, the regulations had to be observed. And his arms were bound behind his back. Just before the cap was placed over his face Kelly took one last look around him, remarked in quiet tones, "Such is life," and a second or two later the last of the ironclad bushrangers was dead. His mother, at the last interview that she was permitted with him, the night before, adjured him to be brave and die like a man. Manfully he did so.

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