The Ashes Diary -The Facts of Ashes

The Oval "Test" in August 1882 ranks as among the most exciting of all down through the years. The encounter has been graphically described by many writers, most notably by H S Altham in A History of Cricket. This was indeed the second encounter in England between the sides, the first had also been played at the Oval some two years earlier with the hosts securing victory by five wickets. By the time the Australians under William Lloyd Murdoch arrived in Kennington in August 1882 they had played no less than twenty nine matches - eighteen of which had been won with a further eight drawn.

Fred Spofforth - "The Demon" - took 14 English wickets for 90 and was largely responsible for the famous victory. After a dreadful start with the tourists all out for 63 runs in the first innings Murdoch's men recovered their composure to seal victory narrowly by some seven runs inside two days! The breathless tension of the final innings with Spofforth overwhelming the England batsmen is the sort of thing that leads to legends and none more so than this epic encounter. Tom Horan, who played for Australia in this Test and in all the four Tests against Ivo Bligh's 1882-83 tourists, was born in Midleton, County Cork, in March 1854.
Victory in England meant that Australia now offered the sternest challenge to the England national XI and of course even more important - their pride! As Punch recorded:

Well done, Cornstalks,

whipt usFair and square.

Was it luck that tripped us?

Was it scare?

Kangaroo land's `Demon', or our own

Want of devil, coolness, nerve, backbone?

On the following Saturday, September 2nd, the Sporting Times carried the famous mock obituary for English cricket - an epitaph that lingers to this day and ensures posterity for the author.

In Affectionate Remembrance of

E N G L I S H C R I C K E T,

which died at the Oval on 29th A U G U S T, 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.

It was left to the Honourable Ivo Bligh to retrieve honour the following Australian Summer. The first Test at Melbourne and the fourth at Sydney were lost but the Second and Third at Melbourne and Sydney respectively were won by Bligh's men and so honour was restored! The fourth Test at Sydney incidentally was not originally in the fixture list so the rubber went to Bligh's team. This match has subsequently been accorded Test status. With Murdoch's Australians still playing cricket in England, Ivo Bligh's twelve strong party departed England for the southern hemisphere in mid September - a mere two weeks after the Oval defeat. The first game in Australia was against XV of South Australia in Adelaide in November. The two day game ended in a draw and in the South Australia capital Bligh made a speech in which he referred to the "Ashes". This mystified the locals somewhat as it meant little, if anything, to the local cricket fraternity - but the seed of the idea of the "Ashes" was spreading.
Victoria were the next opposition and at Melbourne Bligh's party stayed at Rupertwood - the country home in Sunbury of William Clarke. It was here that the Ashes itself became reality in the physical sense. According to one Pat Lyons who worked on the Clarke estate the Ashes came into factual presence during the Christmas sojourn of Bligh's party at Rupertswood. A game was played between the tourists and a number of others on the Clarke paddock. Unfortunately there remains some doubt as to whether the actual "Ashes" were the remains of the ball used in that game or the bails. Whichever, these ashes were presented to Bligh by the Ladies of the Household which included one Florence Morphy. The lives of Bligh and Florence Morphy would soon become further entwined through marriage.
Florence was the music teacher to the Clarke family and a companion to Sir William Clarke's wife, Lady Janet. Florence was the youngest daughter, born in August 1860, of Stephen Morphy. Stephen was the mining warden, district gold commissioner and police magistrate based at Beechworth, Victoria. He was Irish through and through, having come as an emigrant to Australia from Killarney. As to the Ashes urn itself there remains the two labels with inscription, the upper label simply bearing the legend The Ashes, the lower 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.

It is quite likely that these words were penned by Florence herself, although of course, this is in many ways a matter of conjecture.
The term "Ashes" of course precedes these encounters between Australia and England and needless to say it is Ireland that bears the distinction in having the term coined. The Commissioners of the Lord Protector of England, Oliver Cromwell banned the playing of "Krickett" in Ireland by an order of 1656. All "sticks and balls" were henceforth to be burnt (and thereby reduced to ashes!) by the common hangman.