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Episode details

Radio 4,16 Dec 2008,30 mins

Available for over a year

Ned Kelly Listener Ronald Land’s great, grand uncle was Superintendent John Sadleir who was one of the policeman who arrested the Australian outlaw Ned Kelly in June 1880. Ronald is interested to find out how it is that Kelly has gone down in Australian folk-legend – yet his relative is forgotten. Making History consulted Professor Graham Seal Director of the Centre for Advanced Studies in Australia, Asia and the Pacific at Curtin University of Technology. Professor Seal explained that Kelly was one of the last bush-rangers, descended from convicts who had escaped into the Outback and who held a grudge against the colonial authorities, not least because of the way that land was distributed among the first settlers.

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