Page 22 - Luce 2014

News & Events

Ned Kelly Rupertswood
Students and staff were captivated by As the country seat of the Clarke family
a talk from Heritage Victoria’s Senior and ‘home of the Ashes’, Rupertswood
Archaeologist Jeremy Smith, who took has always been of interest to the
them on an archaeological quest which College. A visit by the Principal
led from the Old Melbourne Gaol strengthened ties as he was shown recent
to Pentridge and an unmarked grave renovations by Rupertswood Heritage
which it was thought might be Ned
Kelly’s resting place. In a classic case of member Ken Farrow and Salesian College
historical and archaeological detective Rupertswood Alumni Relations Manager
work, Jeremy and his team put together Lisa Cole. Through a happy coincidence,
clues which led them to a burial site of heritage considerations will be assessed
Col Bastiaan AM at the unveiling reinterred bodies comingled and moved, by JCH alumnus Guy Murphy (1991),
ceremony with Col Michelle Ager and with scant respect, to the Pentridge who has been commissioned to prepare
Gen Hon Justice Greg Garde AO Prison grounds in 1929. A drain cut the history of the building as part of a
in the 1960s had destroyed the likely new Conservation Management Plan for
Commemorating the University burial site – but as fate had it, the bones the site.
at war have survived in a new, unmarked
location excavated by the team – and
In May Colonel Dr Ross Bastiaan AM DNA analysis finally revealed that Ned
RFD (1971) unveiled the first two of five Kelly’s body was rediscovered, with
bronze commemorative plaques that clear evidence of gunshot wounds from
provide a rich interpretative context to the his final stand. Listeners were told that
newly restored University Cenotaph on the famous ‘stolen skull’, returned after
South Lawn. As the Melbourne University years of patient negotiation, was not that
of Ned Kelly, but another prisoner, and
Regiment gathered with representatives that Ned was probably spared the fate of
from the University and Janet Clarke Hall, being stolen only because his burial was
the Vice-Chancellor paid tribute to Dr a metre off line from the 1880 marker
Bastiaan for the care and skill through that indicated his burial place.
which he had honoured those university
students and staff who had served the As with Melba, there is a direct link
regiment in peacetime and in war. back to JCH: of the four suits of armour
recovered from Glenrowan after the
Honorary Dental Surgeon-General to famous shootout, Joe Byrne’s suit of
the Governor-General, and a former armour was presented to Sir William
lecturer in the University of Melbourne’s Clarke by Police Superintendent Hare,
Faculty of Dentistry, Ross has combined and is now in the possession of Clarke
family descendants.
a distinguished career as a dentist Ken Farrow and Lisa Cole at
with a long commitment to Australian Rupertswood
military history. Formerly Deputy
Chair of Council of the Australia War
Memorial, Dr Bastiaan is internationally
recognised for his work in creating
over 240 interpretative plaques guiding
visitors seeking to understand the major
sites of Australian wartime service and Jeremy Smith (right) at the Old
commemoration. Melbourne Gaol

In March the Principal was delighted to welcome back into the College Prof
Alexandra Walsham, former Resident Tutor in History from 1988 to 1990.
Prof Walsham is among the world’s most distinguished British historians, with
publications including The Reformation of the Landscape: Religion, Identity and
Memory in Early Modern England (Oxford 2011) which was joint winner of that
year’s Wolfson History Prize. In 2010 Prof Walsham became the first woman to
hold the Chair of Modern History at the University of Cambridge. It was an added
pleasure for the Principal to meet with Alex, as she had been in the Melbourne
history honours programme the year ahead of him and offered a role model for him
and all aspiring historians.

22 LUCE Number 13 2014