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Official Replica Ashes Urn, 2009 series



Object Number:
TN.2008.1853
Production notes
commissioned by MCC
Object name
Ashes urn
Object category
Ashes

Description

The Official Replica Ashes Urn is traditionally shown alongside the Waterford Crystal Trophy during award ceremonies. 2009 series.

Display caption

Official Replica Ashes Urn, 2007 Terracotta pottery on an ash base Official replica commissioned by Marylebone Cricket Club. The original is permanently housed in the MCC Museum at Lord’s Cricket Ground, which twice toured Australia as part of the Australian Bicentenary Celebrations in 1988, and a special Ashes Exhibition organised by MCC in 2006-07. The original Urn was presented to the Hon. Ivo Bligh (afterwards Lord Darnley) as a personal gift by some ladies of Melbourne during Bligh's England team's tour of Australia in 1882-83. The precise origin and purpose of the urn is uncertain. It was an impromptu gift to the Hon. Ivo Bligh but is almost certain to have had a previous use before this presentation. It may have been a trinket picked up on a European tour by the Clarke family, possibly a perfume bottle. At the Kennington Oval in August 1882 Australia defeated England for the first time on English soil. It was a match England should have won; the defeat shocked an English public accustomed to superiority on the cricket field. Four days later a mock obituary appeared in the Sporting Times, announcing the death of English cricket, that the body would be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia. The Hon. Ivo Bligh, about to captain an English team to tour Australia, declared he would win back the ashes. It was a joke, as was the presentation of the urn, but the legend of the Ashes had begun. Kindly loaned by Marylebone Cricket Club Museum Museum Number: TN.2008.1853