The Royal Commission of 1881

The calls began within days of Glenrowan. Assistant Commissioner Nicolson asked for an inquiry on 30 June 1880 and Chief Commissioner Standish on 5 July, the senior officers' quarrels with each other being part of the reason, and the Berry government announced a Royal Commission in November. The Governor signed the order on 7 March 1881. Its terms were to inquire into the circumstances preceding and attending the Kelly outbreak, the efficiency of the police to deal with such occurrences, the conduct of the police authorities while the gang was at large, the means used to capture them, and the general state and organisation of the force. Evidence began on 23 March.

The commissioners were unpaid and nearly all of them were politicians. Francis Longmore, the chairman, had been a critic of Standish for years. James Graves, the Member for Delatite whose electorate took in Mansfield, sat until July when he was made Commissioner of Trade and Customs. George Wilson Hall, the editor of the Mansfield Guardian, had already published a book on the gang in 1879. William Anderson, George Fincham and James Gibb were members of the Assembly; Edward Dixon was a justice of the peace; George Levey joined later. One member of the Council resigned within a month. Between them they held sixty six sittings, took evidence from sixty two witnesses, and travelled to Benalla, Greta, Glenrowan, Beechworth, Sebastopol and Wangaratta. Standish, Nicolson, Hare, Sadleir, Brooke Smith, Sergeant Steele, Detective Ward, Constable Fitzpatrick and Constable McIntyre all gave evidence. The sessions were open and The Argus printed them.

The first progress report came on 6 July 1881 and dealt in practicalities: that the Queensland officer O'Connor not be appointed to the Victorian force, that Aboriginal trackers be employed permanently, that a thorough patrol system be set up with the north east first, and that the mounted police be armed at once with the Martini Henry carbine.

The second report, in October, went to causes and conduct. On causes it found that the administration of the North Eastern District had not been satisfactory, and that a grave error had been committed in abolishing the Glenmore station and cutting the number of men elsewhere. It described Constable Fitzpatrick as having borne a very indifferent character in the force and his attempt to arrest Dan Kelly as unfortunate in its results, while noting that the acting commissioner had written him down as a liar and a larrikin. Then it dealt with the argument that has followed the case ever since. The claim that the police persecuted the Kelly family, it said, had been frequently urged in extenuation of the outlaws' crimes; after careful examination the commissioners had concluded that the police in their dealings with the Kellys and their relations were simply desirous of discharging their duty conscientiously, and that no evidence supported the allegation of persecution or unnecessary annoyance.

On the pursuit it was scathing. It assessed the reward system, which had reached eight thousand pounds, and concluded it had not to any appreciable degree helped the police. It counted a hundred and twenty seven reported sightings of the gang between November 1878 and June 1880, threw out twenty five as untrue and seventeen as too old to act on, and left eighty five of some value. McIntyre's own count, in his memoir, was harsher: a hundred and nine reports, fifty seven false, thirty eight stale, fourteen worth anything. The commission's view was that fear of the gang and a network of sympathisers in the district had done more than any reward could undo.

On Stringybark Creek its language was the strongest in the report. The killing of Kennedy, wounded and pleading to be allowed to live to see his wife and children, it called one of the darkest stains on the outlaws' career, and cruel, wanton and inhuman.

The report ended careers. Standish, already retired, was censured. Nicolson and Hare, who had been on leave through the inquiry, were allowed to retire and made magistrates. Sadleir was censured and later reinstated. Ward was reduced in rank. The constables who had been in Aaron Sherritt's hut when he was killed were dismissed. Steele demanded a further hearing. The schoolteacher James Wallace of Hurdle Creek, who had taken police money for false information while supplying the gang, was dismissed by the Education Department at the commission's urging. Objections were lodged in December 1881 and the arguments ran in Parliament and the press into 1882.

The inquiry has been attacked from both directions since. Writers sympathetic to the Kellys point out that not one sympathiser or relative was called, and that the land question was never examined. Descendants of the police point out that the hearings were political, that the sections on the Mansfield party were thin, and that the commission named the informants who had helped the police, some of whom then had to leave the district. One of them, a publican and teacher named Daniel Kennedy, took a school at Winchelsea to get away.

What it changed was the force. Patrols, arms, trackers and an overhaul of command all followed. The papers of the commission sit with the rest of the Kelly records at Public Record Office Victoria, on the Australian Memory of the World register.