Will The Real Joe Byrne Please Step Forward?
Captain Jack Hoyle (retired)
Yuletide Felicitations to all Kellyites!! And congratulations and thank you to Paul O’Keefe for his courageous raising of the “is it or isn’t it Joe Byrne?” debate. I too have puzzled over this perplexing issue, sometimes agreeing, other times wondering how it could be the same man as the verifiable image of Joe Byrne strung up against the Benalla police station. But rather than join in with the “I reckon” opinions, may I list a few of the surviving records and statements in the literature, and most importantly the surviving photographs and their given identities.
As the police hunted for the boys “amongst their mountain fastnesses “a number of detectives were searching across the entire state for travelling photographers, and anyone who might possess photos of the gang. The Police had photos of Ned and Dan when they camped at Stringybark Creek – the nasty Ned with cropped hair prison photo and presumably one of the two surviving non prison photos of Dan.
With the identification of Joe Byrne and Steve Hart, the hunt was on for photos of the two fugitives.
The photographer William Edward Barnes wrote to Melbourne photographer Arthur Wellington Burman from Wangaratta on December 13th 1878: “Sir, I have a negative of Steve Hart who is now with the “Kelly gang” and who took part in the affair at Euroa the other day. It is a full length C. de V. [carte de visite] taken in shirt sleeves, and a true likeness, taken about 12 months since. I do not think as far as I can learn from other members of the family here that any other negative exists. As it would be of more benefit to you in Melbourne than to me in this small scattered district I thought I would write and ask if you would like to buy it.” (VPRS 4965)
No similar offer to sell a photo of Joe Byrne exists today, and with three of the four outlaw’s photographs now in Police custody, the hunt for Joe Byrne’s face intensified.
In Albury, Sub Inspector Malley Esq wrote on the 2nd of January 1879 “Mr. Bridle states that he is not . . . in possession of any photos” (VPRS 4965)
Sergeant Parker wrote from Cootamundra on the 9th of January 1879: (Photographer) “Mr. John’s is not in possession of a negative of either Hart or Byrne” (VPRS 4965)
Inspector Mainwaring wrote on the 3rd of January 1879: “Mr. Kruger is believed to have taken a photo of Byrne the Outlaw some time ago in Wangaratta or in that neighborhood and to have the negative with him. Will Mr. Chomley be good enough to obtain from him a print of all the male persons named Byrne taken at or immediately around Wangaratta and these can be sent here for identity (sic). If possible it is desirable not to let Mr. Kruger know that this has anything to do with the outlaw business.” (VPRS 4965)
Inspector Mainwaring had already telegrammed Superintendant Chambers on the 23rd December 1878 ordering a search for “travelling Photographer Nashbourne “ Wangaratta Police reported back on the January 10th 1879: “ I have to inform my Officer that every exertion and inquiry has been made to get Byrne’s likeness. Mr. Barnes has been seen but has no negative; it is almost certain that he never had his likeness taken, he was always opposed to it from a schoolboy” (VPRS4965) Joe Byrne remained elusive, and Joe’s aversion to being photographed had been prophetically fortunate!
On the 28th of January 1879 this memo was written: “Returned to Mr. Chomley. With six copies of each of Edward and Daniel Kelly’s photos. A photo of Hart which is not allowed to be copied is in possession of Superintendant Palmer at Sandhurst. NO LIKENESS OF BYRNE CAN BE OBTAINED.” (VPRS 4965).
Case closed? Not likely!
The enterprising Mr. Burman who had purchased the Steve Hart negative was keen to capitalize, and with his connections as a Government Photographer he started to sell copies of photos of Dan and the painted on beard composite that he had produced as an updated image of Ned for the Victorian Police. Burman wrote on December 18th 1878: “Will you oblige me by giving me permission to show Steve Hart’s likeness in my window.” Mr. Secretan will tell you that it was through me you obtained it.” Standish replied to Secretan on the 19th December (with Melbourne scratched out as the address, to be replaced by Benalla): I have no objection, as more good than harm will be done by his likeness being known to the public” but he added “you must get his promise in writing (underlined) that no duplicates are to be struck off, as I have given an undertaking to Mr. Barnes of Wangaratta to that effect”
So Burman had three of the four outlaws displayed in his shop window on Bourke Street East? Burman wrote to the Police on the 21st of July 1879 “A man purchased at my shop yesterday one of each of the Kelly Gang and left word he would call again for an enlargement of Kelly, has not yet been.” A detective reported to Mr. Secretan “A respectable looking man went into his shop and asked the young lady assistant for photos of the two Kellys, Hart and Byrne. He also wanted a “large portrait (similar to the one in Mr. Burman’s window) of Ned Kelly. Another letter from Burman to the Police describes a man who wanted a photo of Byrne and Hart to “take to Tasmania”. How much are those four outlaws in the window?
In Francis Hare’s book The Last of the Bushrangers, published in 1892, the first reasonably accurate engravings taken from the police photos of the gang and Aaron Sherritt were published. Prior to this, most published portraits in newspapers were hasty sketches from photos, further losing likeness as they were redrawn for engraving and publication in books and newspapers. The reproduction of halftone photographs was not possible until the mid to late 1890’s. The portraits of Dan Kelly, Steve Hart and Joe Byrne are heavily redrawn from the original photographs. Strangely, the portrait of Aaron Sherritt is almost photographic when compared to the other 3 portraits. The Joe Byrne image has always been problematic, most authors concur that it is actually a portrait of Joe’s younger brother Patrick (Paddy), often mistaken for Joe. This is most probably from Police files and most likely the photograph spoken of being in the window at Burman’s.
If you compare the parting of the hair in the ‘Paddy /Joe Byrne’ Hare portrait it is easy to see the photo has been reversed, a common mistake made when photos were traced, then retraced for transfer for engraving on to woodblocks, not steel engraved as might be imagined. With Paddy reversed, we see that he is indeed like Joe, but with a massive jaw and what appears to be a cleft palette, he is also standing beside a similar ornate desk and wearing the same style suite as the Joe Byrne with the walrus moustache photo. It could be a hand me down, or two brothers in their matching Sunday best, but it should also be remembered that photographers of the time always had flash clothes on hand for clients in rough bush clothes to wear. The two men may have borrowed the same suit. But if we compare it with the photograph of Paddy standing with Tom Straughair in ‘The Fatal Friendship’ there is also a similarity but they don’t seem to be the same person. One thing they do have in common are light moustaches over longer beards, a trait that Police descriptions of Joe constantly refer to “brown whiskers, slight moustache” or “very fine, like first growth”, yet the young Joe has a well grown, long moustache. The eyes are heavily retouched in the young Joe portrait, to the extent that a lid has been added to the right eye and further retouching is under the eye. The left eye also is heavily retouched with pupils defined to produce a” lazy right eye” for Joe. The light blue eyes that Joe had were notoriously difficult to photograph at the time, they usually printed as white, leaving the photographer to add them later with a fine brush or pen. Carte de visite’s image area is a tiny 90mm x 55mm, the same size as today’s business card, so a full length portrait had eyes that were only a few millimeters in size and retouching was a hit and miss procedure done by the photographer or his assistant at the end of the long working day. Joe’s lip line on Burman’s close up of the macabre display at Benalla has been painted over. I have a small collection of photos from the period, including Burman’s, and even when they do not look retouched, close inspection proves them all “improved”.
All portraits of the era are very misleading to modern eyes, as they have been “enhanced” to some degree. This has led to modern authors to write of Ned’s “lazy left” eye, when in fact they are looking at the cropped hair, prison portrait with the badly retouched eyes – a close examination shows india ink splodges on the pupils. If you look closely at the boxing portrait, due to retouching, Ned has a “lazy right eye”!! I have searched for years for any contemporary observation of this lazy left eye, but none can be found, not in Prison reports, or the descriptions of artists like Carrington and Julian Ashton, or in descriptions by condemnatory journalists who spoke of his large eyes and their extraordinary lashes.
But back to Joe, there isn’t a photo of Joe in Police hands, but there must have been. Hare published the image he thought was Joe, but Hare was not familiar with Joe, only his corpse at Benalla. Perhaps his photo is a photo of Joe so retouched as to make him almost unrecognizable. If it is true that the Bray family still holds the plate negatives that James Edward Bray produced, a scholarly review of this collection could reveal, through modern scanning techniques, any number of lost portraits and the prints produced would not be retouched by shaky 19th Century hands.
Another aspect of this question is provenance – where, who, how, when. Perhaps this moustached young man IS Joe Byrne, but which Joe Byrne?
When we refer to page 5 of the superb ‘The Fatal Friendship’, Ian Jones writes of Joe Byrne’s birth: “Paddy was determined to proclaim his pride in the father he had hardly known . . . even though John and Mary Byrne had named a son Joseph only two years earlier.” He also writes “Paddy and Margret settled at Reedy Creek, John and Mary Byrne made their home nearby”. On page 13 he records Elly Byrne saying “So Joe trudged off to school with his older Byrne cousins – Uncle John’s sons James, Joseph and Michael” So now we have two Joe Byrnes in the Beechworth district! Perhaps ‘Moustache Joe’ is his two years older cousin, Joe Byrne – that would explain the similarity and difference between the man on the door and our other Joe. Joe on the door has a much broader nose, broken or not, and looks more like the Paddy photo in ‘The Fatal Friendship’. ‘Moustache Joe’s’ nose is much thinner than the other Joe or Paddy, but there are as many differences as there are similarities.
Now that we have cleared all that up, may I present one more mystery, to muddy the waters just a little more. On the 26th of March 2002, Christies auctioned a large collection of previously unseen photos of family and friends. Listed at 119 was a torn carte de visite portrait of a seated man, described as George King, husband of Ellen Kelly.
The catalogue states that it is thought to be by Barnes of Wangaratta and reports “This portrait was unidentified for many years until a family member noted a resemblance to Joe Byrne, and inscribed Joe’s name on the back of the mount. Aware that the police confused Joe Byrne with George King in 1878, Ian Jones suggested to descendants in 1995 that this could be in fact a portrait of King. After comparison with several portraits of King’s children, family members accepted the identification”
So this “could be in fact” a portrait of George King, keeping in mind that George’s mouth is an ink line of retouching, he looks uncannily like the ‘Joe/ Paddy Byrne’ reversed and corrected image. When you place the image over the George King face – they match. An unlikely outcome. So is this Paddy, not George? I don’t think George looks like Paddy in The Fatal Friendship, nor like Joe on the door! Or does he?
So, it is quite simple, isn’t it? Joe was never photographed in life, but he was. Burman couldn’t have had a photo of Joe, but he sold them. The Police didn’t have a photo of Joe but Joe, who is probably Paddy was published in Hare – as Joe, presumably from Police files, and he wears the same suit and leans on a similar desk, in almost the same pose as ‘young Joe’. But weedy young ‘Moustache Joe’ doesn’t have the obvious star appeal that ‘dead on the door Joe’ still has to this day. George King looks exactly like Hare’s Joe, who could be Paddy, but it isn’t him either. Or is it?
It should be acknowledged that the only photos of any certainty that can be accepted as the real Joe Byrne are the three images of him strung up at Benalla. As Ian Jones said, in the caption of the photo in The Fatal Friendship “Hard to believe that this urbane figure is Joe Byrne” With the seeming acceptance of the moustache man image as the definitive and most used image of Joe Byrne, it would be more prudent to caption this portrait “ thought to be Joe Byrne” until conclusively proven. Gentleman Ned was Ned Kelly until proven otherwise, and he was probably a close relative mistaken for his kinsman by later family members, perhaps two years older cousin Joe Byrne is now the outlaw? And will forever be!
Who are you Joe Byrne?
