In the opening paragraph of Peter Carey’s novel True history of the Kelly Gang, on the morning of 29 June 1880 a formidable apparition emerges from the Glenrowan scrub behind police lines, firing a revolver and booming at the crouching police
I am the bloody Monitor my boys! 1
Taken from an eyewitness account, this fascinating remark offers proof that Ned Kelly was inspired by a sensational new idea that was to empower maritime nations throughout the world
- the Monitor Class of battleship. The Victorian Government had some 17 years earlier thought out a similar strategy.
When the Victorian colonial government deemed it necessary to protect Port Phillip and the booming gold-flushed city of Melbourne from the perceived threat of attack by Russia, they ordered the best ship that money could buy. No more wooden sailing ships with rows of decks and
cannon, but the latest in technology - an ironclad, steam-powered and fore and aft-revolving turret sporting military marvel. It was the modern day equivalent of a Stealth bomber among
an airforce of Tiger Moths. Following the Crimean War and American Civil War, a number of these new ‘armoured coastal defence ships’ were built, and were generally known at the time as ‘Monitors’ or ‘turret ships’. The Cerberus was the first unrigged British Monitor, and it was to become the flagship of the Victorian Colonial Navy’s fleet. Upon Federation the HMVS Cerberus became the HMAS Cerberus – the Royal Australian Navy’s first capital ship.
During the American Civil War, the day after the ironclad CSS Virginia/Merrimac had sunk the Yankee sloop Cumberland and forced the frigate Congress to surrender, it met its match in the Yankee’s own ironclad USS Monitor. In what was to be the world’s first battle between ironclads, both vessels assailed each other with seemingly crippling rounds of fire, but
both survived. The lesson was that only a Monitor could stand up to another Monitor.
While Monitors were highly effective weapons, their higher centre of gravity due to the weight of their turrets and armoured upper works severely affected their seaworthiness. On 31
December 1862 the USS Monitor itself capsized in a gale off North Carolina with the loss of all 16 crew. Marine archaeological investigations have since found the USS Monitor to be lying
upside down on the seabed, and the site has been declared a National Marine Sanctuary. On 6 September 1870, a Turret Ship the HMS Captain also turned bottom up in a storm off Cape Finisterre, Spain, with the loss of 475 lives, including that of its creator, Captain Cowper Phipps Coles.
When the Cerberus (designed
by Chief Naval Constructor
E.J. Reed) was due to leave
England for Victoria just two
months after the Captain
disaster in November 1870, 50
crew members opted to go to
jail rather than sail to
Melbourne in the Cerberus.
After departing Portsmouth
with just 25 crew, the Cerberus
encountered a storm. When it
reached Malta on 28
November nearly the entire
crew attempted to desert, 10
were gaoled and one drowned
in the attempt! A 24-hour
guard boat was posted, and
soon after the Cerberus
wallowed its way to Port
Phillip under sail. It was never
intended that the Cerberus
leave Port Phillip Bay, so
seaworthiness was no longer
an issue.
From this perspective Ned
Kelly’s armour has another
parallel with the Monitors, as
his own armoured breastwork
- complete with turret-like
helmet – was vulnerable.
Police fired double barrelled
shotguns at Kelly’s exposed
legs to cripple him. Kelly listed
and sank backwards, borne
down by the weight.
The Cerberus today is suffering a
similar but more drawn out fate, as its
armoured turrets, 10-inch guns and
breastwork are crushing down upon
its 1¼ inch plate iron hull. It is no
longer afloat since being scuttled as a
breakwater at Half Moon Bay.The
Cerberus’ turrets still peep out above
sea level but the
forces of corrosion
are winning.
Until now, theories
about the inspiration
behind the Kelly
gang’s decision to
manufacture suits of
armour have ranged
from the novel
Lorna Doone, to
ancient Chinese
armour being displayed in a
Chinese parade at Beechworth
which may have been seen by
Joe Byrne. 2 However Carey’s
book gives a fascinating glimpse
of the moment that Ned Kelly
was inspired to create the
armour:
Taking Aaron Sherritt as a scout
we journeyed to the shepherd’s
hut up on the Bogong High Plains
you will recall I said the walls was
papered with words and pictures
from The Illustrated Australian
News they was tattered like old
skin and very yellow gnawed on
by mice…It were during them
winter storms we begun studying
the paper on the walls my
LORNA DOONE was long ago
ruined in the Murray so there
were not a great deal else to read
but the news of 18 yrs.
before……..I come across the
badly damaged likeness of a ship
called the Virginia the southerners
had clad it all with iron there
were another ship the Monitor its
bridge were like a tower forged of
steel 1/2 in. thick an ironclad
monster with a pair of 11 in. guns
like the nostrils on a face. O that
a man might smith himself into a
warship of that pattern he could
sail it to the gates of Beechworth
and Melbourne gaols. Blast down
the walls. Smash the walls apart.
Removing a piece of paper from
my britches I laid it before Joe’s poisoned
eyes.
What is it he asked and turned it upside
down.
It is the pattern for an ironclad man.
Who is he asks Joe.
He is you I said he is a warrior he
cannot die.
For his head I made a fort like the turret
of the Monitor I made a thin crack so he
might observe the destruction of his
enemy no gun could hurt his tortured
heart. 3
While the famous battle between the
USS Monitor and CSS Virginia/ Merrimac
may have been old news in 1880, it is
telling that the Cerberus was actively
stationed in Port Phillip from 1871 to
1924. It would still have been a newly
arrived novelty and pride of the fleet
in the decade 1870–80 when the Kelly
gang was active. Engravings and articles
about the Cerberus appeared in
newspapers that would have been
avidly read by the gang.
Recently there has been news that
under the Commonwealth Moveable
Cultural Heritage Act Ned Kelly’s
armoured right shoulder plate will not
be allowed to be sold outside of
Australia. Commonwealth funding is
also to be provided to reunite it with
the rest of the suit and thereby
complete Kelly’s unique uniform.4
The Cerberus may hold the world’s
most undistinguished record for a
fighting ship, having never fired a shot
in anger. However, like Kelly’s armour,
it is also unique and has national and
international importance as a piece of
Australia’s naval, maritime and
industrial heritage.We can only hope
that the Cerberus’ armour inspires
not only Victorians, but all Australians
to protect it as well.
In 2000–01 Heritage Victoria spent
$15,000 to commission a feasibility
report by GHD Pty Ltd engineers to
stabilise the collapsed structure, and raise
it to its pre-collapse level.The cost of this
operation is estimated to be $2.5 million.
References
1. Unsigned, undated, handwritten eyewitness
account in Melbourne Public Library Ref.V.L.
10453. Cited in Carey, Peter, 2001, True History of
the Kelly Gang, University of Queensland Press: p.1.
2. http://www.ncs.net.au/nedkelly/html/armour.htm
3. Carey, 2001: pp.371-374..
4. The Age, 19 May 2001, p.6.