Hi Bob and all
Cobbers were one of the plethora of bush bands that recorded this song, in fact I think it was pre- Red Gum but I wouldn't swear to it. It only came out as a single and it might have been for the Ned Kelly centenary in 1980 that we were involved in. Trevor Lucas was in Melbourne at the time and we played nim the tape of the unfinished song. We had picked up on the 1885 mistake and changed the date back to 1878 and he told us how embarrased he had been after recording it with Fotheringay. Apparently they had needed an extra song and he had that one that he had been playing around with and they recorded it, with the date coming from his memory and no time to check. To be fair, in those days, there wasn't the mass of information that is available now, and where in England would you find data on Ned Kelly anyway. It's a great song, and the crowds loved it but personally, I never thought it really suited us that well. I was rather glad that we didn't put it on any of our albums.
Cheers
John Armstrong