Dan Kelly and Hart in the burning hut.

Rare, c.19th engraving depicting the bodies of Dan Kelly and Hart at Glenrown.

We also heard that Dan Kelly and Hart were standing side by side in the passage between the two huts, looking cowed and dispirited, without the slightest sign of fight left in them. In fact, as one informant said, they looked for all the world like two condemned criminals on the drop, waiting for the bolt to be drawn’.  At a quarter to 3 o’clock a sharp rattle of rifles was heard, and a man was seen advancing from the west end of the house with a large pile of straw, which he placed against the weatherboards and lighted. The flames quickly ran up the side of the house and caught the canvas ceiling. In about 10 minutes the whole of the roof was in a blaze. Just at this moment a priest was seen going up quickly to the front of the house. The crowd closed in after him, and in a few moments the door was burst open. Four men rushed in, and soon reappeared, dragging out the body of Byrne, who still wore his breastplate … In the meantime, the unfortunate man Cherry, who was wounded to death, was drawn out at the back of the house, and the priest anointed him, and in a few moments after he calmly passed away. The bodies of Dan Kelly and Hart could now be plainly seen amongst the flames, lying nearly at right angles to each other, their arms drawn up and their knees bent, and I feel perfectly certain that they were dead long before the house was fired. Mrs. Skillian and Kate Kelly stood at the railway gates watching the inn burning, and when the charred remains of their brother were brought out, howled loudly and lustily over the blackened bones.

From the original edition of Illustrated Sydney News.

References:
Gibbs & Shallard. Illustrated Sydney News. ISSN 2203-5397.

Collections:
State Library of New South Wales: F8/39–40
State Library Victoria: PCINF SLVIC=1853–1872
National Library of Australia: Bib ID 440095