Episode 234: Ned Kelly: The Australian Iron Man
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On this episode of The Sofa King Podcast, we go back in time and Down Under to talk about the life of the Aussie outlaw, Ned Kelly. Kelly is a figure in Australia who summons the same type of rebellion and badassery as the figures of the American old west. He was born in 1855 at Beveridge, Victoria, and started life innocently enough. However, when his father died, the family was left without any money, and they slowly turned to criminal ways.
In fact, at age 14, Ned Kelly was arrested for assaulting a Chinese rail worker. Shortly thereafter, he ran with famed bushranger Harry Power and went deeper down the criminal’s path. All the while, an allegedly corrupt police force kept trying to arrest and harass the Kelly family, leading to endless encounters with them. Based on this, Ned Kelly started to steal horses, and he and his brother went in and out of jails on a pretty regular basis.
Eventually, a deputy named Fitzpatrick came to arrest Ned Kelly’s brother, Dan. The deputy was shot and claimed it was Ned who did the shooting (though many accounts say Fitzpatrick was untrustworthy and corrupt). Multiple family members got involved in this crime, and everyone from his mother to in-laws were locked up for abetting a criminal.
This is where the Kellys got a lot more serious about their crimes. They started to rob banks and take hostages. (So many hostages…). They started to take over hotels and hold the patrons at gunpoint while they planned and executed their robberies. They even used this trick on a police station, taking the cops hostage and using their uniforms to rob a major bank.
All of these crimes make Kelly no better than your average Billy the Kid or any other outlaw. That is, until the armor showed up. The Kellys spent upwards of five months creating suits of bullet proof armor. They tried different materials, different densities, and eventually created an armor by re-forging the blades of ploughs. This armor is what made Ned Kelly the most famous.
During the final shootout where the cops came for him and his family, Ned wore his Iron Man armor and was the only outlaw to survive the encounter. So, what finally brought the Aussie Iron Man down? How did the last members of his gang die? How did the hotel with the hostages catch fire? What finally became of Ned Kelly? Listen, laugh, learn.
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