The Ashes

The story of the Ashes.

In 1882 an Australian cricket team travelled to England for a cricket series. The journey took 6 and a half weeks. They were on a 4 month tour. Due to a communication breakdown, a Test Match was not included in the programme. They managed to squeeze a five day test in at the Oval. Unfortunately for England, the match, was all over in 2 days, with Australia winning by 7 runs. Reporters were very disappointed in the result. A couple went straight to Fleet St and paid to have a 4 inch square of space in a sporting paper and wrote an obituary about the death of cricket. This went viral and all of England and Australia were reading about the death of English cricket.

In the summer of 1882/83, England sent a team of players out to Australia. The English team was made up of half ‘gentleman’ and half paid cricketers, as was the way in those days. They were attending a function at 'Rupertswood', a private house outside of Sunbury. There was a social game of cricket and a dinner. Before dinner, the lady of the house, Lady Janet Clarke, sent her nanny, Florence Morphy, upstairs to get a wooden perfume urn from her dresser. She then snuck into her husband's cricket gear and took out two bails. She burnt the bails and put the ashes into the perfume urn. After dinner, during the speeches, the little urn was presented to the captain of the English team, Ivo Bligh, as a joke.

At some point the urn was briefly returned to Lady Clarke so she could glue on the paper clippings about the death of English cricket.

The captain, Ivo Bligh, took it home and felt it really belonged to him, so he kept it on his mantelpiece for the rest of his life. This captain actually returned to Australia to marry the Nanny. They went back to live in England.

On his death, instructions were issued for the urn to be given to the MCC to keep in safe possession. It was delivered by his wife, the original nanny, who had gone upstairs to collect the little urn.

It has travelled to Australia twice, but is now considered too frail to travel. A Waterford crystal replica, many times larger than the little urn, now travels and is at the ground of every test match. It is currently held by England, and has pride of place next to the original in the MCC museum. When Australia holds the Ashes, the crystal trophy is in Australia.