Sunday Times (Perth, WA : 1902 - 1954), Sunday 23 May 1926, page 5


THE LATE SERGEANT DEVINE

A KELLY GANG ECHO THE STICKING UP OF JERILDERIE, N.S.W.

The demise of ex-Police Sergeant George Denis Devine recalls the story of the sticking up, by the Kelly Gang, of the township of Jerilderie (N.S.W.), the rounding up of the inhabitants in the hotel, the robbing of the bank, and the locking up in their cells of Devine and his constable. The authentic story is told in the recently published vo-lume, "Australian Bushrangers," of which G. E. Boxall is the author. The chapter devoted to the Jerilderie epi-sode is as follows :–

"After the hank robbery the gang again retired to their mountain fast-nesses. Occasionally a paragraph in one of the local newspapers recorded the movements of the police or furn-ished a story about the black trackers, but these notices were necessarily very meagre; the police declined to furnish any information as to their proceed-ings or intentions, because this would be of more use to the bushrangers than to anyone else. For more than a month nothing reliable had been heard of them. Even the reports of the arrest and detention of numbers of "bush telegraphs" failed to attract attention, and the Kelly gang had almost ceased to be spoken of, when suddenly the whole country was roused by the news that they had stuck up the town of Jerilderie, in New South ales. Jeril-derie is situated on the Tanco Creek not far from its junction with the Billabong, and at that time contained about 200 inhabitants, a bank, four public-houses, a post and telegraph office, and several churches, schools

and other buildings. The local police station and lockup was near the out-side of the town, and there were two

officers – Constables Devine and Rich-ards – stationed there. At midnight on

February 9, 1879, a man roused Con-stable Devine from his bed, and in-formed him that a row had taken place at Davidson's Hotel and a man had been killed. He exhorted the constable to 'come quick,' Devine woke Richards, and both dressed as hastily as pos-sible. When they came out they were confronted by Ned Kelly, revolver in hand, and ordered to 'bail up.' Not having their arms on them, and being taken completely by surprise, the two surrendered at once and were locked up in the cells. The bushrangers then compelled Mrs. Devine, who had also partially dressed, to hand over all arms and ammunition, and took pos-sesion of the lockup, remaining quietly there till morning, their horses being placed in the police stables at the rear. It was Sunday morning. The Catholic church had not yet been finished, the court-house had been rented for reli-gious purposes, and Mrs. Devine had been accustomed to clean up the place, set the temporary altar, and place the forms and chairs ready for mass. The bushrangers told her to perform her task as usual, after having extorted a promise from her that she would not mention their presence to anyone; and to make certain of her keeping her word our of them, dressed as a con-stable, went with her to the court-house and stayed while she swept the floor and prepared the room. Then

they returned to the lockup, which was about one hundred yards from the

court-house, and remained there all day arrayed in the constables' uni-forms, siting quietly in the guard-room. No doubt numbers of people

passed and saw them, but no one had any suspicion that bushrangers were in charge instead o£ the police.

"Early on Monday morning Byrne

took two horses to the blacksmith's shop to be shod, and the blacksmith, feeling some doubt as to the bona fides of the pseudo-trooper, made a note of the brands on the horses. At about 10 a.m. Ned and Dan Kelly, accompanied by Constable Richards, went to the Royal Hotel, the largest hotel in the town, where Richards formally intro-duced them to the proprietor. Mr. Cos. Ned informed Mr. Cox that he

The Late Ex. Sgt. G. D. Devine

A photograph taken in the days when the deceased had good reason to re-

member the Kelly Gang.

required the use of some rooms, as the gang intended sticking up the bank. He selected a large and a small room on the ground floor, near the bar, and conducted the few men about at the time into the large room, where they were ordered to remain until given permission to depart. Dan Kelly was placed on guard at the door to keep

order and prevent anybody from es-caping, and was instructed to shoot the first man who refused to do as he was told. On Mr. Cox passing his word, as a gentleman, not to mention their presence to anyone who should come in. he was permitted to take charge of the bar as usual, and was given to understand that he could be held responsible for the discretion of the women and servants. Anyone whom he could not trust was to be sent into the large room. The preliminaries were arranged so unostentatiously and quietly, that no rumor of the presence of the bushrangers had yet been heard, and as customers dropped into the

hotel they were taken into the big room and told to remain there on penalty of death.

"Having made these arrangements. Ned Kelly walked into the hotel yard to reconnoitre. There was a detached kitchen here, and the rear of the Bank of New South Wales was only a tew yards from the rear of this kitchen. The bank faced on another street, and there was no dividing fence between the bank and the hotel. Hart was placed on watch near the kitchen, while

Byrne entered the back door of the

bank. Mr. Living, the teller, was in

the bank chamber. He was not sur-

prised to hear a man enter by the back door, as Mr. Cox and other cus-tomers frequently came in that way, it being a short cut from the hotel. Sud-denly, however, Byrne came to the counter, pointed a revolver at Living's head, and cried out. 'I'm Kelly, keep quiet.' Living held his hands above his head. 'Where's your pistols ?' asked Byrne. 'I've got none,' replied Living. Byrne then ordered Living and the ac-countant Mackie to come over to the hotel. They did as they were told, Byrne following them. When they reached the door of the large room Dan Kelly inquired, 'Where's Tarle-ton ?' 'In his room,' replied Living. 'Then go and fetch him and no —— nonsense,' said Dan. Living went back to the bank, but being unable to lind the manager in his rooms began to fear that something might have happened to him. He was about to return to the hotel to inform the Kellys that he

could not find the manager, when he heard a splashing. He went to the bathroom and knocked. Tarleton had been for a 40-mile ride that morning, had just returned, and was having a wash. When he opened the door and was informed that the town was in possession of the Kelly gang, and the bank was stuck up, he laughed hear-tily, believing it to be a huge joke. Living assured him that it was not a laughing matter, but he was still in-credulous. However, he dressed and went to the hotel, where he soon dis-covered that what he had deemed im-possible had come to pass. The three bank officials were placed in the large room. Tarleton, who took a seat next to Constable Bicharas, whispered, 'I can knock Hart down; shall I ?' 'What's the good ?' replied the constable, 'Dan Kelly's there, and he'd shoot you down

at once.'

"Ned Kelly had hitherto been walk-ing round as a sort of inspector-gene-ral of the proceedings and giving or-ders. He now entered the room and ordered drinks to be served all round. Then he made a speech, in which he blamed Constable Fitzpatrick for all that had occurred. He went on to say that he had stolen 280 horses from Whitby's station, and had sold them at Baumgarten's. He took out a re-volver and exclaimed, 'This was Loner-gan's! 1 took it from him. The gun 1 shot him with was a crooked, worn out thing, not worth picking up. I shot him because he threatened my mother and my sister if they refused to tell where Ned Kelly was. The

police are worse than the —— black trackers. I came here to shoot Devine and Richards, and I'm going to do it." The men at the table began to inter-cede for Richards, who was sitting quietly among them, and who did not speak, but Kelly exclaimed dramati-cally, 'He must die.'

"Ned got the key of the bank safe, and took 1450 worth of notes and money from it. He also took £691 from the teller's drawers. While thus employed, Messrs. Gill, Hardie and

Rankin came in on business in the or-dinary course and were ordered to bail up. They turned and ran. Ned Kelly followed and caught Rankin, but the others got away. Ned was furious at this escape. He said that news of their presence would be all over the place in a few minutes, and he swore he would shoot Rankin in revenge. He took Rankin to the hotel, stood him up against the wall in the passage and flourished his revolver about. The men in the room pleaded that Rankin might be spared, and urged that he could not have prevented Gill and Hardie from running away. While this was going on Byrne came in with Mr. Hardie and said that they could not find Gill, the proprietor of the local newspaper, as

he had not returned to his office. Ned

Kelly then let Rankin go. and declared

that he would burn the newspaper office. Mr. Gill, it is said, went out of the town and hid in a clump of trees

by the side of the river till evening,

Ned then walked down to M'Dougall's Hotel and shouted for about 30 men who were in or about the hotel at the

time. On his return to the Royal Hotel

he was informed that Hart had robbed the Rev. Mr. Gribble of a gold watch. He called Hart up and asked indig-nantly, 'What right has a thing like you to rob a clergyman ?' He swore a good deal and compelled Hart to give the watch back. Complaints were

made that he had stolen a new saddle and bridle from a saddler's shop, and some other articles from other places.

Ned called him a thief, and or-dered him to return everything he had

taken.

"Ned Kelly paid more than one visit to the Post and Telegraph Office to

'see how things were going on.' The robbers had cut the wires on either side of the town before their entry, and had chopped down seven tele-

graph posts in the main street near

the office. They had given orders to Mr. Jefferson, the telegraph master, that no repairs should be attempted

until permission was given, and Ned took care that these orders were obey-

ed. They held the town for three days,

as the Hall and Gilbert gang had held : Canowindra. Jerilderie was at this

time slightly larger than Canowindra at the time when it had been stuck up and held, but there was less traffic through it, and consequently less con-

nection between it and the outer

world than with Canowindra. The road running through Jerilderie leads from Conargo to Narrandera. Jeril-derie is about 30 miles from Conargo and 65 from Narrandera. All round are huge sheep and cattle stations, with

only a few men employed on them ex-cept at shearing or mustering tune. All through the remainder of the year the traffic is inconsiderable. There was in Jerilderie, however, a large wool-washing and fellmongery establish-ment which employed a fair number of workmen. Canowindra, on the other hand, was a wayside town on the main road from Bathurst to Forbes, the traffic being considerable all the year round. There were also several small diggings not far away, and the resi-dents of these frequently came to pur-chase articles from the stores at Cano-windra. It was far easier, therefore, to isolate Jerilderie for three days than it had been to stick up Canowindra. But the Hall and Gilbert gang robbed everybody except the landlord of the hotel. The Kellys, on the other

Mrs. Mary Devine

Who survives her husband and is at

present livingr at Victoria Park.

hand, robbed no one outside the bank. Jerilderie was a much

more compact town than Cano-windra, the latter consisting of one long straggling street, with only a few houses outside this line, while

Jerilderie had several cross streets, and

at least two parallel with the river.

''The robbers held the town from midnight on Saturday until about 4 p.m. on the Wednesday following. Shortly before their prisoners were al-lowed to leave the Royal Hotel, Ned Kelly gave Living a paper which, he said, gave a history of his life, and the truth about what he had done. Living promised that he would do his best to get it published, and handed it to Mr. Gill, who read it and forwarded it to the Government. It was a long, ramb-ling statement, in some parts quite in-coherent, and much of it false. It

was never published. At about 4 o'clock Byrne left the town in the direction of the Murray River. He was riding his own horse, and had the money stolen

from the bank packed on one of the

police horses, which he was leading, A minute or two later Dan Kelly and Steve Hart mounted their horses, and galloped several times up and down the main street, flourishing their revolvers and shouting, 'Hurrah for the good old times of Morgan and Ben Hall !' Then they left the town along the main road. Ned Kelly, mounted on his grey mare and leading a. second police horse, left some minutes later. Before going,

he rode from the police station to the Royal Hotel, and told the men detained

in the large room there that they were free.

"The bushrangers had left the town by different routes, probably to pre-vent any information as to the road they had travelled from being furn-ished to the police; but no doubt they had arranged where the should meet outside at a safe distance. Late in the evening they rode up to Wannamurra

station, about 25 miles from Jerilderie,

and Ned Kelly asked Mr. A. Mackie whether his brother was at home yet, Mr. Mackie replied that he did not know. 'I'm going to shoot him fer giving horses to Living and Tarleton to ride to Deniliquin for the traps,' said Ned. They all went to the station together, but evidence was soon brought forward to prove that the bank employes had not obtained horses from Mr. Mackie, and at length Ned exon-erated that gentleman, but forcibly ex-pressed his intention of shooting Liv-ing. 'I gave him back his life policy,' he said, 'and I only burned two or three of the bank books instead of the lot to oblige him. He asked for them, and I treated him as fair as I could, and now he takes advantage of my kindness to betray me.' He walked up and down on the verandah of the house for several minutes swearing at Liv-ing, and more than once said he had a good mind to go back and 'settle him' at once. His rage, however, soon sub-sided, and the gang proceeded on their way, no attempt being made to detain

them.

"Jerilderie lies about 120 miles, as the crow flies, from where the bush-rangers were supposed to have hidden in the Strathbogie Ranges; and, when the news of the bank robbery at Jeril-derie was telegraphed all over th« country, wonder was everywhere ex-pressed as to how the robbers had crossed this country, some of it thickly populated, without being perceived. The skill with which the robbery had been planned, the boldness and com-pleteness of the arrangements, and the apparent ease with which it had been accomplished, made the Kelly gang the principal topic of conversation. The New South Wales Government issued a proclamation declaring Ned and Dan Kelly, Joe Byrne and Steve Hart out-laws, and offered a reward of £3000 for their capture, dead or alive. The associated banks of the colony supple-mented this reward by another £1000. The Victorian Government increased the rewards already offered to the amount offered by the New South Wales Government ; the banks in that colony added another £1000, thus mak-

ing the total reward offered for the capture of the four members of the gang £8000. Two thousand pounds per man was the highest reward ever of-fered for the capture of bushrangers in Australia."