The Australian Cricketers.

The famous Australian cricket team that were the first to defeat England at home winning by seven runs. The the one-off match played at The Oval would become the birth of The Ashes. The Australian team comprised of; Billy Murdoch (captain), A.C. Bannerman, J.McC. Blackham, G.J. Bonnor, H.F. Boyle, Tom Garrett, George Giffen, Tom Horan, Sammy Jones, Hugh Massie and F.R. Spofforth.

England’s astonishing collapse had shocked the English public, and the press savaged the players. On 31 August, in the great Charles Alcock-edited magazine Cricket: A Weekly Record of The Game, there appeared a now-obscure mock obituary: SACRED TO THE MEMORY OF ENGLAND’S SUPREMACY IN THE CRICKET-FIELD WHICH EXPIRED ON THE 29TH DAY OF AUGUST, AT THE OVAL —- “ITS END WAS PEATE” —— Two days later, on 2 September, a second, 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 29 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. Ivo Bligh fastened onto this notice and promised that, on the tour to Australia in 1882–83 (which he was to captain), he would regain “those ashes”. He spoke of them again several times over the course of the tour, and the Australian media quickly caught on. The three-match series resulted in a two-one win to England, notwithstanding a fourth match, won by the Australians, whose status remains a matter of ardent dispute. In the twenty years following Bligh’s campaign, the term “The Ashes” largely disappeared from public use. There is no indication that this was the accepted name for the series—at least not in England. The term became popular again in Australia first, when George Giffen, in his memoirs (With Bat and Ball, 1899), used the term as if it were well known.[1] The true and global revitalisation of interest in the concept dates from 1903, when Pelham Warner took a team to Australia with the promise that he would regain “the ashes”. As had been the case on Bligh’s tour twenty years before, the Australian media latched fervently onto the term, and, this time, it stuck.

From the original edition of the Illustrated London News.