LETTERS from a Benalla bank manager supporting bushranger Ned Kelly and condemning the actions by police against him have been confirmed as genuine.
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The letters by George McCracken were given to Wangaratta solicitor John Suta, who is self-confessed long-time of Kelly supporter.
They were handed over to Mr Suta last year by a person who was a descendant of Mr McCracken.
“The letters are not earth-shattering, but they are significant,” Mr Suta said after getting them.
But there was scepticism earlier this year about whether the letters were genuine.
Mr Suta said the writer’s identity had now been verified without doubt.
“George McCracken’s signature has been independently verified utilising probate documents and Mr McCracken’s own will,” Mr Suta said.
“A comparison of all signatures emanating from different legal documents are no doubt from the same hand.
“In this context, the contents of the letters are highly significant.”
Mr Suta said he had received personal criticism and had been accused of fabricating the letters.
“The letters themselves have been described as a hoax,” he said.
“Those critics have now been left red-faced.”
George McCracken, the son of a policeman, was a bank manager at Benalla and wrote to his mother in early 1879 on a Colonial Bank of Australasia letterhead.
The confrontation between Kelly, his gang members and police happened at Stringybark Creek near Mansfield in October 1878.
Three policemen were killed and two months later there was a bank hold-up at Euroa by Kelly and his associates.
The first letter by Mr McCracken said there was “great dissatisfaction at the movements of the police in the matter of the Kellys”.
“People are beginning to declare against the force in general and after the gang are caught a thorough investigation into the force’s conduct and work will take place,” he said.
Mr McCracken repeated newspaper reports that the outlawed Kelly, along with brother Dan, Joe Byrne and Steve Hart, were at the New Year’s Day races at Benalla.
Police apparently knew they were there, but Mr McCracken said no-one could understand why action was not taken against the gang.
Kelly sympathisers were arrested and remanded in Beechworth jail without any evidence against them being given to a magistrate.
Mr McCracken made reference to an incident at the Kelly homestead in April 1878 where a constable apparently tried to force himself on Kate Kelly, then 14.
The constable was wounded, either by Ned or his own hand, and it led to a vendetta against the Kellys.
“If what Ned Kelly says is true with regard to the treatment his sister received, it is no wonder that he and his brother had such a hatred against police,” Mr McCracken wrote.
