On the 18th of January 1788, the first fleet arrived in Australia and by the 26th, had begun the establishment of a permanent penal colony at Sydney Cove. Although initially all convicts were sent to Sydney, by the mid 1800’s convicts were being re-located and sent directly to Victoria, Tasmania and Moreton Bay in Queensland.
Free settlers, often impoverished in their countries of origin and encouraged by government funded immigration soon began immigrating from throughout the British Isles seeking cheap land ownership and a fresh start, coming from Irish, Welsh, Scottish and Anglo-Saxon backgrounds.
The mingling of these diverse backgrounds, often separated by geographical boundaries in Britain, often saw many animosities they felt towards each other in ‘the old country’ emerge in tensions between the dominant British authority and cultural groups. Regarding Victoria in the mid to late 1800’s, this animosity was particularly evident in the relationship between Irish families and is partly the origin of Ned Kelly’s career as an outlaw.
An artist’s sketch of Irish immigrants crowding onto a large British ship in port at Liverpool, England.
These struggling families were encouraged to participate in agricultural production through the introduction of “selecting,” a process of land acquisition that saw free settlers acquire large allotments of crown land for no, or very little fee applied.
Most of these settlers, particularly in the Victorian rural regions where the Kelly’s were eventually located made their living primarily through subsistence farming, often keeping a small number of livestock and land for pasture and crops like wheat and other grains.
The living conditions were often harsh as families braved the elements and hostile environment that became regarded as commonplace in Australian bush life. The isolation of many of these small communities, farms and stations also made them vulnerable to outlaws who preyed on the exposed and mostly undefended farmers.
A typical settler’s cottage not unlike that which the Kelly family lived in, many struggling settlers lived in such housing through harsh elements of the Australian bush environment.
Most ‘bushrangers’ that operated in and outside of gangs would commonly plunder mail coaches on the quiet roads that winded on for some expanse before the next towns or homesteads. They also stole livestock, food and supplies from the sparsely situated farmers and horse stealing became a common crime for outlaws to be convicted of, Ned Kelly himself would be condemned by authorities for receiving a stolen horse.
A drawing contemporary to the 1850’s period depicting bushrangers skirmishing with settlers, the Kelly gang’s positive relationship with many local selector families changed the attitude of their community towards the outlaws.