Edward Tylecote - Oxford University, Kent and England

Oxford University, Kent and England

Tylecote went on to Oxford University, winning his Blue in 1869, 1870, 1871 and 1872. He was captain in the last two of those years. He went on to play for Kent in 1875, and he continued to play for them to 1883. Tylecote also played some cricket for his home county of Bedfordshire, which is not a first-class county, from 1870 to 1877.

He was a member of the Honourable Ivo Bligh's team to Australia to recover the Ashes in 1882/3. A fully representative England side had lost to Australia at home for the first time in 1882, after which a mock obituary to English cricket had appeared in The Sporting Times. The joke at the time was that Bligh's tour was going over to Australia to recover the ashes. This he succeeded in doing, by beating the team that had beaten England two-one, and afterwards Bligh was presented with an urn with ashes in it by some Melburnian ladies as a memento. A poem was attached to the urn, which memorialises Tylecote's contribution, along with the contributions of a number of his team-mates:

When Ivo goes back with the urn, the urn;

Studds, Steel, Read and Tylecote return, return;

The welkin will ring loud,

The great crowd will feel proud,

Seeing Barlow and Bates with the urn, the urn;

And the rest coming home with the urn.