From violent cop killer to a champion of the working class, bushranger Ned Kelly is a solid gold Australian icon and folk hero. By the time Kelly was captured in June 1880 after the famous siege at Glenrowan – a precinct included on the National Heritage List – the bearded bushranger had won the hearts of Victorians. When he was sentenced to hang five months later for the murder of three policemen at Stringybark Creek, 30,000 people signed a petition demanding clemency. The iron armour that saved – or some might say cost him – his life is preserved as a national treasure in the State Library of Victoria.

• Ned Kelly’s suit of armour was half his own body weight.
• Before being hanged at the Melbourne Gaol Ned Kelly uttered his famous words, “Such is life”.
• Twelve days after Ned Kelly was hanged in 1880, Sir Redmond Barry, the judge who sentenced him to death, himself died as a result of a carbuncle on his neck.