Ned Kelly & The Inn Beechworth
The Inn Beechworth sits on an important piece of Ned Kelly history. On the banks of the Spring Creek at the back of the property Ned Kelly won a bare-knuckled boxing match against Isiah (Wild) Wright that changed the course of his life.
In 1871 Wild Wright went to visit and stay at the Kelly House in Greta West. During the night his horse strayed from the paddock. The next day they went out looking for the lost mare but were unable to locate it. Wild was in a hurry to return to Mansfield, so Ned lent him one of his horses.
Sixteen-year-old Ned eventually found the fine chestnut mare and decided to take it for a ride to Wangaratta and show it off. On his return via Greta the local policeman, Constable Hall, recognized the horse as being stolen and arrested Ned. Wild had ‘forgotten’ to mention to Ned that he had stolen the mare.
Ned received a three-year jail sentence with hard labour for ‘receiving a stolen horse known to be stolen’. Wild only received an eighteen-month sentence for ‘illegal usage of a horse’.
Sometime after Ned’s discharge in 1874 from Pentridge Prison at the age of nineteen he ran into Wild Wright at the Imperial Hotel that once stood on the site of The Inn Beechworth. The two men decided to solve their grudge once and for all with a fight. Wild was known to be the toughest man in the area and should have been the easy winner. London Prize Ring Rule governed the fight, which went for nineteen rounds and lasted several hours and ended with Ned the winner.
This win and the previous three-years hard labour changed Ned’s status in the community and the decisions he made in the future. Ned was eventually hung at the age of twenty-five after the siege of Glenrowan.
Beechworth & the Gold Fields
In 1852 gold was discovered in Spring Creek, Beechworth and within 11 months 8,000 hopeful prospectors had descended on the area to try their luck at finding their fortune. By 1857 more than 20,000 people lived in Beechworth. The wealth of the gold rush built Beechworth and the nationally significant buildings that still stand today.
People from all over the globe made the difficult journey to Beechworth in search of wealth and property. They flocked from USA, England, Ireland, Wales, Scotland and China. Chinese miners were prominent in the goldfields during the 1860’s and formed a large part of the population until the gold ran out around the turn of the century.