Glenrowan is a town located in the

Wangaratta Wangaratta ( ) is a city in the northeast of Victoria, Australia, from Melbourne along the Hume Highway. The city had a population of 29,808 per the 2021 Australian Census. The city is located at the confluence, junction of the Ovens River, ...

local government area A local government area (LGA) is an administrative division of a country that a local government is responsible for. The size of an LGA varies by country but it is generally a subdivision of a federated state, state, province, division (politica ...

of Victoria,

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

. It is 236 kilometres north-east of

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

and 14 kilometres from

and near the Warby Ranges and Mount Glenrowan. At the , Glenrowan had a population of 1,049.

History

Glenrowan was named after farmers James and George Rowan who ran farms in the area between 1846 and 1858. The township was settled in the late 1860s, the Post Office opening on 22 February 1870. It is famous for the

bushranger Bushrangers were armed robbers and outlaws who resided in The bush#Australia, the Australian bush between the 1780s and the early 20th century. The original use of the term dates back to the early years of the British colonisation of Australia ...

Ned Kelly Edward Kelly (December 185411 November 1880) was an Australian bushranger, outlaw, gang leader, bank robber and convicted police-murderer. One of the last bushrangers, he is known for wearing armour of the Kelly gang, a suit of bulletproof ...

, who made his last stand and was eventually captured there in 1880 after a siege and shootout with police. The local railway station opened in 1874 and closed to passengers in 1981. The town gives its name to the Glenrowan wine region which was formally defined in 2003, with the first grape vines planted in 1866.

The town today

Glenrowan is a popular rest point for those travelling on the

Hume Freeway The Hume Highway, including the sections now known as the Hume Freeway and the Hume Motorway, is one of Australia's major inter-city National Highway (Australia), national highways, running for between Melbourne in the southwest and Sydney in ...

. In the township of Glenrowan, off the highway, tourists can rest, walk and examine the famous Kelly siege sites. The town had an

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an Australian rules football playing field, oval field, often a modified ...

team competing in the Ovens & King Football League however went in to recess after the 2019 season due to lack of support.

Climate

Works on the area and Ned Kelly

Books

Though a very small locality many books on the Kelly Gang's final siege at Glenrowan exist. Though many works discuss land selection, social conflict etc., they all have many details, photos, maps, sketches and facts about 1880 Glenrowan, its railway, the two hotels, and planned train derailment. * Kenneally, J. J. ''The Inner History of the Kelly Gang'', 1929 (many reprints available- this was a watershed pro-Kelly work) shows pictures of Glenrowan during the 1880s * Brown, Max. ''Australian Son'', Georgian House, Melbourne, 1948 (plus subsequent reprints) shows pictures of Glenrowan in the 1940s * Carey, Peter, ''True History of the Kelly Gang'', Vintage, 2001 (this is fiction; not a history) * Cave, Colin (ed.) ''Ned Kelly Man and Myth'', Cassel North Melbourne, 1963. (an important watershed work in lifting the Kelly story into the academic arena) * Jones, Ian. ''Ned Kelly: A Short Life'', Lothian, Port Melbourne, 1995. (a comprehensive work including sketches of Glenrowan and the Kelly siege) * Prior,Tom. et al., ''A Pictorial History of Bushrangers'', Paul Hamlyn, Sydney, 1968. (many photos of Glenrowan in 1880 taken during and after the Kelly siege at the hotel) * Molitorisz, Sacha. ''The Romance of Robbery: Australian Bushrangers'', Murray David, French Forest, 1998, (photos and contemporary drawings of Ned Kelly at Glenrowan) * McQuilton, John. ''The Kelly Outbreak 1878-1880'', Melbourne University Press, 1979. (a watershed academic work which discusses land selection in the vicinity of Glenrowan) * Phillips, John, ''The Trial of Ned Kelly'', The Law Book Company, North Ryde, 1987. * Clune, Frank. ''The Kelly Hunters'', 1954. * Osborne, Charles. ''Ned Kelly'', Sphere Books, London, 1970. * Sadlier, John, ''Recollections of a Victorian Police Officer'', (1913)Penguin Colonial Facsimiles Ringwood, 1973. (autobiography from a Kelly Gang police pursuer and conflicts in the Glenrowan locale)

Plays

*Douglas Stewart, ''Ned Kelly'', 1943. (play for radio broadcasts)

TV movies

*'' The Last Outlaw'' (1980) (a TV mini-series)

Fictional novels set around Glenrowan

O'Brien, Antony. ''Bye-Bye Dolly Gray'', Artillery Publishing, Hartwell, 2006.
Glenrowan-aerial

References

External links

Glenrowan Football / Netball Club website

History of Glenrowan

History of the siege of Glenrowan

* [https://maps.google.com/maps?q=-36.463928,146.222372&ie=UTF8&ll=-36.463928,146.222372&spn=0.032864,0.052958&z=14&layer=c&cbll=-36.463928,146.222372&panoid=gutHFAN_syk5kJuLaJCQ9A&cbp=1,334.9156820396038,,0,1.9268669094766688/ Google Street View- Ned Kelly animated theatre] {{authority control Towns in Victoria (state) Rural City of Wangaratta Populated places established in the 1860s Hume Highway