THE ASHES
The series is named after a satirical obituary published in an English newspaper, The Sporting Times, in 1882 after the match at The oval in which Australia beat England on an English ground for the first time. The obituary stated that English cricket had died, and the body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia. The English media then dubbed the next English tour to Australia (1882–83) as the quest to regain The Ashes.
During that tour in Australia, a small terracotta urn was presented as a gift to the England captian Ivo Bligh by a group of Melbourne women. The contents of the urn are reputed to be the ashes of an item of cricket equipment, possibly a bail, ball or stump. Some Aborigines hold that The Ashes are in fact those of King Cole, the cricketer who toured England in 1868. The Dowager Countess of Darnley, meanwhile, claimed recently that her mother-in-law (and Bligh's wife), Florence Morphy, said that they were the remains of a lady's veil.
On 2 September, more celebrated mock obituary, written by Reginald Brooks under the pseudonym "Bloobs", appeared in The Sporting Times. It read as follows:
- In Affectionate Remembrance
- of
- ENGLISH CRICKET,
- which died at the Oval
- on
- 29th AUGUST, 1882,
- Deeply lamented by a large circle of sorrowing
- friends and acquaintances
- ----
- R.I.P.
- ----
- N.B.—The body will be cremated and the
- ashes taken to Australia.
Verse on the Ashes Trophy
A six verse poem appeared in the 1 February edition of Melbourne Punch, the fourth verse of which makes reference to the urn; at some point this verse was glued to the urn and remains so to the present day. The verse in question reads:
- When Ivo goes back with the urn, the urn;
- Studds, Steel, Read and Tylecote return, return;
- The welkin will ring loud,
- The great crowd will feel proud,
- Seeing Barlow and Bates with the urn, the urn;
- And the rest coming home with the urn.
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