Buried in consecrated ground: Ned Kelly’s final wish is honoured

More than 130 years after he was hanged, the remains of the notorious bushranger Ned Kelly will finally be laid to rest – minus his skull.

A folk hero to many, Kelly was buried in the grounds of Old Melbourne Jail in 1880, but his remains were later exhumed and reburied in a mass grave outside Melbourne’s Pentridge Prison. In 2008, an archaeological dig uncovered a skeleton which – with the help of DNA tests – was identified as his and returned to his family last year.

Now his descendants plan to honour his final wish, which was to be buried in consecrated ground.

His skull was stolen from a display case at Old Melbourne Jail in 1978 and its whereabouts remains a mystery.