Reginald Shirley Brooks

Reginald Shirley Walkinshaw Brooks (October 1854 – 10 May 1888) was an English journalist whose spoof obituary of English cricket gave rise to the legend of The Ashes.

Brooks was born in Pancras, London, the elder son of Shirley Brooks, the satirical writer and editor of Punch, and Emily Walkinshaw Brooks.

Brooks' father died in 1874; Reginald Shirley Brooks collated some of his father's satirical writing for Punch about a pompous middle-class couple called The Naggletons into book form and it was published the following year. A further volume of his father's epigrammatic verses was published under the title of Wit and Humour and reviewed in 1884.

Brooks became a writer and journalist himself, joining The Sporting Times no later than 1876. He wrote under the pen-name "Peter Blobbs"; the newspaper, known as the "Pink Un", covered sports in general but particularly horse-racing, and also dealt in society gossip. In 1880 he was announced as the launch editor for The Sketch, a weekly magazine of society news, though the launch did not then happen.

From 1880 to 1884 he wrote for Punch. According to a history of the magazine published in 1895: "He wrote some smart papers, but his groove was not that of the sober and respectable Fleet Street Sage. He preferred wilder spirits, and he accordingly retired, taking with him the sympathy of his companions."

It was while writing for The Sporting Times in 1882 that Brooks published a spoof obituary of English cricket, following the England side's defeat in a Test match against Australia. His mild satire resulted in subsequent cricket series between Australia and England becoming known as "The Ashes".

According to Mike Selvey, besides the chance to be amusing Brooks had a more serious motive in writing his "obituary". At the time, cremation was still unlawful. Brooks' father had been a member of the Cremation Society of Great Britain, which was campaigning to have it made legal. When his father died in 1874, Brooks was unable to have him cremated as he would have wished. However, eight years later he was able to give publicity to the cause through what he wrote. A reference work on cremation states: "Cremation was the butt of many, usually very unwitty, jokes, and the obituary was at least as much a joke about cremation as about English cricket."

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