When was Ned Kelly captured and executed?

Ned Kelly was captured at Glenrowan in north-eastern Victoria on the morning of 28 June 1880 and was hanged at the Old Melbourne Gaol on 11 November 1880. His capture and execution mark the end of the Kelly outbreak and one of the best-known dates in nineteenth-century Australian history.

The Glenrowan siege was the Kelly Gang's final stand. The gang planned to derail a police train that was due to bring reinforcements from Benalla to investigate their earlier murder of police informer Aaron Sherritt. They took about 60 hostages in the Glenrowan Inn and ordered local men to tear up the railway track. The plan was thwarted when schoolteacher Thomas Curnow, released from the inn on the pretext of tending a sick wife, walked down the line waving a red candle inside a hat and stopped the train.

The siege began at about 3am on 28 June 1880 when about 40 police arrived and surrounded the inn. The Kelly Gang emerged at dawn wearing their home-made plate-iron armour, including the famous bucket-shaped helmets. Police rifle fire could not penetrate the armour but the gang's legs and arms were exposed. Joe Byrne was shot in the groin and bled to death. Dan Kelly and Steve Hart died in the inn (probably from self-inflicted wounds or fire deaths after the police set the building alight). Ned Kelly emerged from the back of the inn at dawn, fired at the police, and was brought down by gunshots to his legs. He was captured by police, still wearing his armour, and arrested. About a dozen police, civilians, and gang members died in total.

Kelly's trial took place at the Beechworth Court House in August 1880 and at the Supreme Court in Melbourne in October 1880. He was found guilty of the murder of Constable Lonigan at Stringybark Creek and sentenced to death by Justice Sir Redmond Barry. Kelly was hanged on 11 November 1880 at the Old Melbourne Gaol. His famous last words ('such is life') have been disputed but are widely accepted. His remains were eventually buried in the Greta Cemetery near his home in 2013. The Old Melbourne Gaol is now a museum where visitors can see Kelly's death mask and the gallows on which he was hanged.