Jan 27 2008
Aaron Sherritt
Aaron Sherritt, born 1855, was a strong, athletic youth with an outgoing personality and said to be second only to Ned Kelly in toughness.Aaron attended the same rural Catholic school in the Woolshed Valley near Beechworth as did Joe Byrne, and the two boys were instantly drawn to one another. Apart from a romance with Joe’s sister (and Joe in turn with Aaron’s sister), the two spent time in gaol together. Ultimately, this union was to end tragically as Joe murdered his best friend, after realising that Aaron was spying for the police.
Although Sherritt was supposedly a friend of the outlaws, he became a police informer for money. He advised the police to camp out in a cave near the Byrne’s family home where they stayed there for about a month in a vain hope of capturing Byrne during a visit to his mother. Although it was supposed to be a secret operation, their presence there was soon known to the locals. Mrs Byrne herself discovered the camp in just a couple of days. She noted Sherritt’s presence among the police and informed her daughter who then broke off her engagement to him. Sherritt later married another girl, the fifteen year old Ellen Barry.
On the 26th June 1880, Aaron Sherritt was at home with his wife, mother-in-law and four policemen. A neighbour knocked at the door. When Sherritt answered, it was no neighbour, but his former friend, Joe Byrne who stood there, and he shot Sherritt dead.
The police officers, plucky to a man, hid under the bed and did not even report the killing until late the following morning.
Aaron had paid for this betrayal with his life.
Within a couple of days, Joe Byrne was himself killed in a shootout between the gang and the police.
Like to shout me a cold beer?
