Mathew Inkson

The Ashes Urn Is Not a Trophy

  |   sport

Whenever Australia wins or retains the Ashes, people call for “the urn” to be sent home with the team, believing it to be a trophy. It’s an understandable assumption, but the urn’s history shows that they are incorrect.

Newspaper clipping from The Sporting Times
The Sporting Times 02/09/1882

Most cricket fans know the story - after Australia beat England in an 1882 test match, a mock obituary appeared in The Sporting Times “in Affectionate Remembrance of English Cricket”. The final line of the obituary reads, “The body will be cremated and the Ashes taken to Australia”. Thus began one of the most enduring sports legends.

The obituary was a great joke, and English captain Ivo Bligh (later to become Lord Darnley) declared that he’d regain “the Ashes” when England toured Australia in 1882-83. He referred to “the Ashes” several times during the tour, and the Australian media ran with it. The term then fell out of use for twenty years before being cemented by English captain Plum Warner when he published How We Recovered The Ashes in 1903.

The Ashes legend was forty-five years old when the general public became aware of a certain urn. The following poem, appearing in The Cricketers Annual in 1925, indicates as much:

So here’s to Chapman, Hendren and Hobbs, Gilligan, Woolley and Hearne: May they bring back to the Motherland, The ashes which have no urn!

(For the record, England was thumped 4-1.)

In 1927 Florence Bligh, widow of Ivo Bligh, gave the Marylebone Cricket Club a small terracotta urn that had been given to her husband some years prior. Although the details are disputed it is believed that a group of Victorian women, picking up on the “ashes” term used by the media, awarded him the urn after England’s series victory in 1883.

The urn was a personal gift to Bligh, and was later a personal gift to the MCC. It is known as the “Darnley urn” to distinguish it from other, less celebrated urns that have surfaced over the years.

The Darnley urn was kept in the Long Room at Lord’s until 1953, when it was moved to the MCC Museum at the same ground. Its prominence has led many to assume that the test series is named for it alone, and they believe it to be the trophy.  The Ashes, however, are metaphorical. It is an idea created by The Sporting Times, and one which grew in stature as it collected more stories. The Darnley urn is just one of those stories.

A small, brown terracotta urn
The Darnley Urn

No doubt there are those who would read this and say, “so what?” Despite the history, they would claim that the Darnley urn has come to represent the Ashes for most people and should therefore be considered a trophy. I do not agree.

The urn is delicate and belongs in a museum so that it can be correctly maintained. The MCC respected the wishes of the Australian public and created a large replica trophy of Waterford Crystal to award to victorious teams. If we must have a trophy, this is more suitable than a 125-year-old terracotta artefact.

I don’t understand the attraction to trophies. I believe that the idea is more compelling than a trophy could ever be. The death of English cricket! What a notion! Since 1882 we’ve been playing tests to either regain England’s honour, or to rub her nose in it some more (depending on whose side you’re on). How simply marvellous. I doubt I’ll convince many of my fellow Australians to come around to my way of thinking; we’re too fixated on the physical, on ownership, on possession. If people know the history, though, we can debate these last points alone.


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Neda

No, what you say makes sense.

But I suppose the reason people cling to the idea of the trophy is because it’s a really easy way capture the glory gained from the win in a little package that we can carry around with us & pump into the air at appropriate moments.

Remember, though, that people’s passion about “the trophy” only ever comes from the sentimental value of beating England in the first place. It wouldn’t mean so much otherwise.

Mathew's gravatar

Mathew

Thanks, Neda.

You’re right, of course. I appreciate the value of a trophy, but in that case it really ought to be something that can be lifted by a bunch of players and paraded around a field while they spray champagne over each other.

The problem is that the urn is so well known (and believed to be THE Ashes in most cases), that no trophy is likely to replace it in the hearts and minds of the cricket-following public.

forumjoe's gravatar

forumjoe

This is an excellent article, and a very well written essay. Quite interesting, DSL, I love your posts.
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John

@Mathew I agree. The Bledisloe Cup should standard size by which all trophies are measured.

Religioo

I learned a lot today.

Snap

Trophy comes from the Greek ’tropaion’. They were monuments erected as a visible sign of victory over ekthroi or ’enemy’. They are supposed to mark the place where the ’turning point’ took place.
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Mathew

in reply to Snap

By this definition I guess it is a trophy, just not the one people think it to be. So maybe the title should have been ‘The ashes urn is not “the Ashes”’.

Snap

My point was that any trophy that is portable - is arguably not a trophy.
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Mathew

in reply to Snap

Ah, I see. Now I’m imagining Alastair Cook yelling, “THIS IS TRENT BRIDGE” and kicking Michael Clarke into the stumps.

Abhinav

Well that was something like an eyeopener for me…….thank you….i must say!!