How the tale of the Ned Kelly gang is linked to the birth of the Ashes legend
Two of Victoria’s most enduring legends – the story of the Ned Kelly gang and the birth of the Ashes – are closely linked through one woman who has been largely forgotten. NEW PODCAST LISTEN NOW
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WHEN The Herald ran a reader poll in 1905 to find our “10 best citizens”, Janet Lady Clarke ranked second.
She was narrowly beaten only by Sir John Madden, a prominent politician and Chief Justice of Victoria.
And when Clarke died four years later, her funeral was the biggest Melbourne had ever seen.
While her name has largely faded into history, Janet Lady Clarke was a visionary and philanthropist with close links to both the birth of the Ashes legend and the story of the Ned Kelly gang.
Clarke is the subject of the latest episode of the free In Black and White podcast, available from 8am today.
In a coup for the State Library, the Ashes urn will be on display in the Velvet, Iron, Ashes exhibition from Tuesday next week until February 23 after the Marylebone Cricket Club in London agreed to the lengthy loan.
The exhibition explores the links between many of Victoria’s best-known historic events, including Clarke’s connections to the Ashes and the Kelly Gang armour.
When Clarke’s uncle, Superintendent Francis Hare, was shot in the wrist by Ned Kelly in the Glenrowan siege in 1880, he stayed at her home, Rupertswood, to recuperate.
When he left, Hare gave her one of the Kelly Gang’s four suits of armour in gratitude.
The Rupertswood mansion in Sunbury is best known as the birthplace of the Ashes legend.
In 1882, a mock obituary appeared in The Sporting Times in London mourning the death of English cricket after the touring Australian team thrashed the local team.
The death notice ended with the words: “NB. The body will be cremated and the ashes taken to Australia.”
State Library lead curator Carolyn Fraser says Janet Clarke and her husband, William, the president of the Melbourne Cricket Club, were in England at the time.
Clarke exerted his considerable influence to convince English authorities to send an all-star English team of amateurs and professionals back to Australia with them to tour.
“The amateur players were the more upper-class and aristocratic men on the team, and those men were invited to Rupertswood, the Clarke family mansion, for Christmas in 1882,” Ms Fraser says.
That included the English cricket team captain, Ivo Bligh, who fell in love with and later married the Clarke children’s music teacher, Florence Morphy.
The English team played a social match of cricket against Rupertswood staff, and Ms Fraser says Clarke, and presumably other women at Rupertswood, decided to make a presentation.
It’s claimed a bail from that match was burned, and the ashes put into a small pottery urn, believed to be a perfume bottle that belonged to Janet Clarke, and she presented it to Bligh.
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“What was said to him was that these were the ashes of the English cricket team, and were they to win the upcoming series of Test matches, they would be allowed to take the ashes back to England,” Ms Fraser says.
“So this little urn was a joke in response to that mock obituary that appeared in The Sporting Times.”
PLAY TODAY’S NEW FREE EPISODE OF THE IN BLACK AND WHITE PODCAST ON VICTORIA’S FORGOTTEN CHARACTERS TO LEARN MORE.
And listen to our previous podcasts including the Essendon Football Club trainer who was a quack doctor, the story of Australia’s Willy Wonka, or the piano prodigy who became a “musical spy” in World War II.
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