Chinese suit of armor carried in a carnival procession, Beechworth Victoria, 12 November 1873. Image courtesy of the Burke Museum, Beechworth.

Circa 1880 the Kelly gang started making their four infamous suits of armour. The body armour had breast and back plates, aprons and shoulder guards. One theory claims the gang was inspired by seeing ancient Chinese armour imported for the Beechworth carnival in 1873. The gang had close connections with the Beechworth Chinese community through Joe Byrne, who spoke Cantonese and was an opium smoker.

The police were aware of these connections and concerned the gang was being assisted by the Chinese. Reward circulars written in Chinese and distributed throughout the camps requesting information about the gang’s whereabouts.

Superintendent Hare wanted a Chinese detective sent to Beechworth to assist with finding the gang. In 1879 Detective Fook Shing wrote to his Chinese acquaintances at Dry Creek and Mansfield. His report claimed that the Chinese had no information on the Kellys.

Mounted constable Alfred John Faulkiner reported Kelly as saying if he was Chinese ‘he would go home to China, as one Chinaman was worth all the Europeans, and he would rather trust his life to them than any Europeans, and he would rather trust his life to them than any European living’.