Ned Kelly
By the eighteen hundreds, death masks were not being created as souvenirs of the rich and famous; they were also being made of criminals. The nineteenth-century equivalent of the head on a pike, the publicly displayed death mask was a way of intimidating would be criminals and reinforcing the authority of the law. The death masks of the particularly notorious also earned mask makers and the powers that be a tidy profit. Such was the fate of the death mask of the Australian outlaw, Edward ‘Ned’ Kelly.
Born in 1854, Ned was born in Victoria, the son of John Kelly, a transported criminal. Although John had settled down, the local police remained prejudiced against him, leading to the victimization of the Kelly family. Ned began his descent into crime at fourteen when he was falsely charged with assault. Despite being acquitted, he took up with various bushranger gangs known for stock theft. However, after a violent confrontation with a policeman at the Kelly house in 1878, Ned was indicted for attempted murder. He and his brothers went on the run and, after shooting three police officers, were declared outlaws.
The Kelly gang avoided capture for two years, robbing banks, denouncing the government and demanding justice for the poor. However, time ran out for the modern robin hoods when, after a bungled robbery, only Ned was left alive. He was taken to Melbourne Old Gaol where he was tried and convicted of murder on October 29, 1880. Despite a petition signed by 30,000 people calling for a reprieve, Ned Kelly was hung on November 11, 1880. He was just 25.
Within an hour of his death, Maximillian Kreitmayer, a Melbourne waxwork proprietor, had shaved off the hair and beard of the outlaw. Despite having been left suspended for 30 minutes, Kelly’s features were found to be peaceful rather than disfigured by his execution. Kreitmayer then made a plaster death mask of the deceased. Kreitmayer put the mask was put to immediate use. He and his associates made three casts of Ned’s head – one of which was on display at Kreitmayer’s waxworks the very next day. An assessment of Kelly’s character, made by self-proclaimed ‘Professor of Phrenology,’ A S Hamilton, accompanied the bust.
Hamilton explained how Kelly’s cranial regions indicated tendencies to violence, destructiveness and a desire for attention. He even explained Kelly’s support. “…There are few heads amongst the worst that would risk so much for power as is evinced in the head of Kelly from his enormous self-esteem, ” he proclaimed. “This self-esteem, combined with large love of approbation…. would often make him appear bright, dazzling and heroic to those who could not see through the veil that vanity threw around him.”Hamilton’s explanation ignored the circumstances that pushed Kelly into crime and the fact the public recognized injustice.
However, in other times and places, however, the death masks of the genuinely despicable were objects of veneration.