Famous Cricketers No 67 - Ivo Bligh

after a series of three matches which England won 2-1. A fourth match was played and this was won by Australia.” This footnote first appeared in the 1981 edition. In Lillywhite’s Annual for 1884, Ivo Bligh wrote a detailed report on his team’s visit to Australia. Three matches were arranged against Murdoch’s Team which had won the famous match at The Oval in August 1882. The first was won by Australia. With England apparently having little hope, there were fewer spectators at the second match, which England won. One Australian reporter attributed Australia’s loss to their “uncricketlike preference for the pleasures of picnics, parties, etc - While England fasted at home, the Australians were to be seen drinking champagne in the bush.” England then went on to beat Murdoch’s side in the third match. The game is described almost ball-by-ball in Ronald Willis’s Cricket’s Biggest Mystery: The Ashes . The book explores the origins of the urn which supposedly holds the ashes of a bail. The urn was at some time presented to Ivo Bligh, but was it in the winter of 1882/83 or perhaps the following winter? A fourth ‘Test Match’, this time against a Combined Australian Eleven, rather than Murdoch’s Team, was played - Australia won and levelled the series. Bligh’s report continues: “A very general wish was now expressed that another match should be played at Melbourne to decide one way or the other, the question of supremacy ... we decided to accept the challenge. For some unexplained reason, however, although the originators of the challenge, the other side, could not get their men together, and our eleven, a little dissatisfied at this, being naturally rather wearied with the continuous strain of the past six weeks’ cricket, including as it did, four such matches against the Australian eleven, proceeded to emancipate themselves from the cares and anxieties of first-class cricket by turning their attention exclusively to other amusements, lawn tennis etc.” It was not until June 28, 1883 that the magazine Cricket announced that Ivo Bligh had at last got back to England - the item ends with: “Everyone will cordially wish the Captain better health than he has enjoyed during the last two or three years.” Ronald Willis states in his book that Ivo Bligh had become engaged to Florence Morphy prior to embarking on the voyage back to England. Florence Rose Morphy was born on August 25 1860 in Beechworth, Victoria. Her father died when she was 10 months old, leaving her mother with a family of seven. The family lived on a Government pension and rent from some local properties. Florence Morphy, aged 21, took a job as music-teacher to the children of a local big-wig William Clarke and moved into their mansion, Rupertswood, Sunbury, Victoria. In September 1881 the Clarke family, with Florence Morphy, went on a year’s holiday to England. By coincidence they travelled back to Australia in September 1882 on the same ship as the one carrying Ivo Bligh and the England cricketers to Australia. One assumes that Ivo Bligh met Florence on that voyage and he certainly made friends with the Clarke family. During the 1882/83 tour Bligh spent some time at the Clarke mansion of Rupertswood. Back in England, Ivo Bligh resumed his county cricket and appeared in all the Kent games from July 16 to the end of the season. When the season closed he set sail once again for Australia and the magazine Cricket announced in its issue of February 28, 1884: “As everyone knows, long before this, the Hon Ivo Bligh was married on the 9th February, to Miss Florence Morphy, at Melbourne. The captain of the last English team which visited Australia, won golden opinions from all kinds of men by his tact and unfailing geniality in the Colonies.” The marriage took place at St Mary’s Church, Sunbury. The newly married couple moved to a house in East Melbourne and the first of their three children, Esmé Ivo, was born there on 11th October 1886. By 1888 the couple had returned to England, their second child, Noel Gervase, being born in Brighton on 14th November 1888. Dorothy Violet, the third child, was born on 8th February 1893. Ivo Bligh was interviewed for The Cricket Field and the interview was published on June 30, 1894. He stated 6