Last Stand

On the 27th of June 1880, The Kelly Gang took over the Glenrowan Inn to distupt and derail a special train from Benalla to Beechworth carrying a police detachment. This police detachment was supposed to take up the pursuit of the Kelly Gang. They had predicted this shortly after killing Aaron Sherritt, Joe Byrne's former friend and police informant. It was just after midnight when Ned Kelly and Steve Hart arrived at Glenrowan to carry out there prepared plan, which was to derail the train and take the survivors as prisoners and use them as pawns to secure the release of Mrs Kelly and their friends how were previously captured and interrogated. They first bailed up Mr. Adolphus Piazzi, a railway contractor and his eomplyees. Ned instructed Piazzi to take up the railway tracks but the contractor informed him that they did not know how to do it. Soon they all went over to the stationmaster's house and picked up the stationmaster called Mr. Stanistreet. Altogether they were taken to the railway station to collect two platelayers named Sullivan and Reardon who knew who to lift the railway line. Two lengths of railway line were successfully removed. The next day Ned and Joe rode down to the railway gates and rounded up everyone who came along. In the end they had a total of 62 prisoners. Among the prisoners was Thomas Curnow, a school teacher, who had been taken hostage with is family. Late that night Ned let a handful of prisoners that he trusted to go home. Curnow pleaded Ned to let him free and eventually was let go. Curnow immediately made plans to warn authorities. By chance when he was having supper late one night that he heard the train coming. Curnow immediately grabbed a candle and red scarf to go stop the train. After warning them that the Kelly Gang had removed the railway tracks up ahead he ran back home. The police had decided to push on to the station. Meanwhile back at the Glenrowan Inn, the Kelly Gang had padded up with home-made armour. The police, informed of the presence of the Kelly Gang at the Inn, made their way down towards the hotel. They saw a figure standing ten yards to the left of the building and shouted out: "I would like a word with you". Ned Kelly replied: "I gave nothing to say to you", and then raised his gun and open fired. The other gang members quickly joined in on the verandah and the police returned fire. Ned was eventually shot in the legs by a shotgun and brought down.