Sometime over Christmas and Easter 1882-83, at the Rupertswood estate of Sir William Clarke at Sunbury, near Melbourne, the Hon Ivo Bligh was presented with a small terracotta urn 10.5 cm high that was said to contain the ashes of a burnt bail. The presentation, initially a private joke during a country-house cricket match, eventually produced the most famous trophy in the sport.
Sir William Clarke had been knighted in 1882 and was one of the wealthiest men in the Australian colonies. Rupertswood was his Sunbury estate, complete with private railway station, conservatory, and a cricket ground used for entertainment of touring sides. Lady Janet Clarke was a noted hostess; Florence Morphy, then in her early twenties, was the family's resident music teacher.
Bligh and his team arrived at Rupertswood on Christmas Eve 1882 for a few days of social cricket before the official Test programme resumed. The Sporting Times obituary was a topic of constant dinner-table joking. The Clarke ladies decided to materialise the joke.
Sir William Clarke, the largest landowner in Victoria, hosted Bligh's England side at Rupertswood — a Gothic-revival mansion north-west of Melbourne — over Christmas 1882 and again at Easter 1883. A scratch cricket match was arranged on the lawn. The Clarke ladies, including Sir William's wife Lady Janet Clarke and the family's young Tasmanian-born music teacher Florence Morphy, decided to extend the running joke about the Sporting Times obituary into a physical token.
A small terracotta perfume jar (the design is consistent with mid-Victorian small-bore funerary urns made for keepsake cremated remains) was filled with what was probably the burnt remains of a bail used in the lawn match. A red velvet bag was sewn to hold it. According to most sources the first presentation took place at Christmas 1882 and was treated as a private joke; a second, more formal presentation occurred at Easter 1883 with a six-line verse pasted to the urn.
The urn itself measures 10.5 cm tall. The verse, written in copperplate, reads:
'When Ivo goes back with the urn, the urn, Studdy, 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.'
Bligh fell in love with Florence Morphy during the tour; they married in February 1884. He brought the urn back to England as a personal possession. It sat at the Bligh family home (later Cobham Hall in Kent) for the next 44 years, never publicly displayed.
Christmas 1882: Bligh's team at Rupertswood for social cricket.
Bail burned after lawn match; ashes placed in small terracotta urn.
Lady Janet Clarke and Florence Morphy among the presenters.
Urn handed to Bligh as a private joke.
Easter 1883: More formal presentation with verse pasted to urn.
Red velvet bag sewn for the urn.
Bligh courts Florence Morphy through the tour.
Feb 1884: Bligh marries Florence in Melbourne.
1927: Urn presented to MCC after Bligh's death.
Christmas 1882
First, joke presentation at Rupertswood.
Easter 1883
Second presentation with verse pasted on.
Feb 1884
Bligh marries Florence Morphy in Melbourne.
1900
Bligh succeeds as 8th Earl of Darnley.
1927
Bligh dies; widow presents urn to MCC.
1988
Urn travels to Australia for the Bicentenary Test.
2006-07
Urn travels to Australia for second time, for the Ashes tour.
“When Ivo goes back with the urn, the urn, Studdy, Steel, Read and Tylecote return, return.”
“A tiny silver urn, containing what they termed 'the ashes of Australian cricket.'”
The urn never travelled with Test sides. From 1883 to 1927 it sat in private possession; from 1927 to the present it has lived at the MCC Museum at Lord's, leaving the building only twice for special exhibitions in Australia (in 1988 and 2006-07). For everyday Ashes purposes, a Waterford crystal replica is awarded to the winning captain. The original is too fragile to travel.
Florence Morphy outlived her husband by seventeen years, dying in 1944. She made her gift of the urn to MCC in 1929; her gesture is the reason the urn sits at Lord's today.
A three-and-a-half inch terracotta jar that began as a country-house joke and ended as the most photographed trophy in cricket — the Ashes urn's origin story is unmatched in sport.
The urn is one of the smallest and most fragile sporting trophies in the world, and the only one whose origin lies in a private domestic joke between a touring captain and his future wife's social circle. Its image — the terracotta body, the small handle, the painted decorative band — is reproduced on every piece of Ashes merchandise, on stamps, coins and TV graphics.
Yorkshire v Essex
1932-06-16
On 15-16 June 1932 Herbert Sutcliffe (313) and Percy Holmes (224*) put on 555 for the first wicket against Essex at Leyton, breaking the world first-class record for any wicket and adding a layer of folklore — including a scoreboard that read 554 for several minutes and a hastily reversed declaration — that has clung to the partnership ever since.
Australia v England
1933-02-14
With the fate of the Bodyline series in the balance and England 216 for 6 chasing 340, Eddie Paynter checked himself out of a Brisbane hospital where he was being treated for acute tonsillitis, taxied to the Gabba in pyjamas and a dressing gown, and batted for nearly four hours to score 83. England drew level on first innings, won the Test by six wickets and the series 4-1.
Australia
1934-09-25
Days after the 1934 Oval Test, Bradman fell seriously ill with appendicitis that progressed to peritonitis. With antibiotics not yet available, he was given little chance of survival; his wife Jessie left Adelaide on a sea voyage to England prepared for the worst. He recovered after weeks of intensive nursing in a London nursing home and returned to first-class cricket the following Australian summer.