Although Ned Kelly is one of Australia’s most notorious bushrangers, very few people know more than the fact that he and his gang wore metal armour over their heads and bodies.

Ned Kelly was born at Beveridge, Victoria in December 1854 to an Irish couple, John and Ellen Kelly. At the age of twelve, Ned’s father died and so he was forced to leave school to support his seven brothers and sisters. The family moved to a slab hut on Eleven Mile Creek where Ned, as the oldest of the Kelly boys, mustered cattle, ringbarked trees, broke in horses and fenced properties to feed his family.

He was fourteen when first arrested (for a minor offence) and by the time he was twenty, had served three years for receiving — albeit unknowingly — a ‘borrowed’ mare. Embittered, he returned home to his mother and her new horse-thief husband, where the family faced the persecution of the local constabulary. His mother, brother and brother-in-law were imprisoned and Ned and his brother Dan became the target of police vengeance.

With old friends, Steve Hart and Joe Byrne, Kelly’s ‘gang’ went into hiding where they planned to distil and sell illicit liquor. Believing that they would be shot on sight, the gang shot three of four policemen hunting them and consequently became the most wanted men in the region.

The gang continued to dodge the police and pulled off several daring heists to fund their escape. An £8000 reward was put on their heads and an old ‘friend’ told the police when the gang returned to Kelly Country. The murder of this informant was added to the growing list of charges.

Finally, in 1880, a showdown occurred at Glenrowan in which all but Ned of the Kelly gang were killed. Several civilians were shot and killed by the police in the crossfire and Ned was captured when his legs, unprotected by the armour, suffered crippling gunshot wounds disabling his escape. He recovered from his almost-fatal injuries only to be sentenced to death. The hanging was carried out on November 11, 1880 at the Old Melbourne Gaol.