Descendants of Ned Kelly want the Australian authorities to hand over his remains so they can give him a ‘proper and decent’ burial.
Archaeologists have located remains they believe belong to the bushranger last year in a mass grave at the site of a former prison, and they are now with the Victoria state coroner while the government decides what to do with them.
Peter Norden, formerly a chaplain at Melbourne's Pentridge Prison where the remains were found, said descendants of the outlaw - hanged in 1880 after an epic battle against the law - want him to be buried with his relatives.
He said female descendants, including a grand niece, were willing to submit DNA so his remains could be separated from those of other executed inmates in the mass grave and laid to rest with family members.
‘Certainly, all the relatives I've spoken to have said that they think he should be buried outside prison grounds,’ Mr Norden said, adding that the family did not want to be identified.
Ned Kelly was hanged at the Old Melbourne Gaol in 1880, but documents show his remains and those of 32 other executed prisoners were exhumed and reburied at Pentridge Prison in 1929.
Archaeological digs at the site of the former jail have unearthed unmarked coffins containing the remains of the executed prisoners, badly decomposed and mingled.
Ned Kelly was a bank robber who killed three policemen.
He evaded capture for nearly two years before he and his gang faced a showdown with the law in Glenrowan in northern Victoria state on 28 June 1880.
Three of the four gang members were killed but Ned Kelly, who was wearing heavy armour made out of ploughshares, was wounded and captured.
His exploits have been made into several films, including one with Rolling Stones rocker Mick Jagger in the lead role, and his legend still captivates a country used originally as a settlement for convicts deported from Britain.
‘It's almost 130 years since his execution, but he still generates enormous common and public interest,’ Mr Norden said.
Born to an Irish ex-convict father, Ned Kelly has been viewed by some as a kind of Robin Hood who robbed the rich because of injustices towards the poor.
The Australian government's own cultural website describes Kelly as ‘one of Australia's greatest folk heroes.’
It points out that more books and songs have been written about him and his gang than any other group of Australian historical figures.
His homemade iron visor, with a slit for his eyes, inspired Australian artist Sidney Nolan's most famous series of paintings, while Peter Carey won the 2001 Booker prize for literature for his ‘True History of the Kelly Gang.’
The Australian government has made efforts to preserve Ned Kelly's memory, and Glenrowan, where he made his last stand, has been listed as a national heritage site.
Ned Kelly's reputed last words on the gallows were: ‘Such is life.’
