The Earl of Darnley, 'Ivo' Cricketer

細節

Sir Leslie Matthew Ward 'Spy' (1851-1922)
The Earl of Darnley, 'Ivo'
Cricketer
signed 'Spy' (lower right)
pencil, watercolour and bodycolour
14 x 7¾ in. (35.6 x 19.8 cm.)

來源

A.G. Witherby.
Original Drawings for the Cartoons in Vanity Fair; Sotheby's, London, 28 - 29 October 1912, lot 114 (£4 to Nattali).

展覽

London, Lords Centenary of the Ashes, 1982.
Hendon, Church Farm House Museum, Vanity Fair 1869-1914, 10 September - 18 December, 1983.

注意事項

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拍品專文

Ivo Francis Walter Bligh, 8th Earl of Darnley (1859-1927), Cricketer, was educated at Eton, where he played in the First Eleven (1876-7), and went on to Trinity College, Cambridge where his superb skill at the game was recognised. Bligh is remembered for captaining the English cricket team in the first-ever Ashes series in Australia in 1883. After the English team lost to the Australians in 1882, the Sporting Times wrote an 'obituary' to English cricket, noting that the body would be cremated and the ashes sent to Australia. The following tour to Australia, led by Bligh, was widely billed as an attempt to reclaim the Ashes. Bligh's team was successful, winning the 3-match Ashes series 2-1 and his name was engraved on the Ashes Cup. Bligh then stayed in Melbourne and married Florence Rose Morphy (d.1944) in 1884. Afterwards, the couple returned to England where Bligh's career did not prosper as expected. He was President of Kent County Cricket Club (1892 and 1902) and the M.C.C. in 1900, the same year he inherited the Earldom of Darnley and was elected an Irish representative peer. He died at his home, Cobham Hall, Kent, in 1927.

Apart from cricket, he is an all-round sportsman as well as a man of manners.... He won the racquets for Eton [and] beat Oxford at the same game three years running, besides winning two inter-Varsity contests at tennis. He has since been President of the M.C.C.; but he has now descended to golf. Nevertheless, he is a good shot who is fond o shooting.

Vanity Fair, 'Statesmen', No. 766, 1904.