Early life Ashton was born in
Calcutta, India on 13 February 1898. Ashton's mother, Victoria Alexandrina Inglis, was the daughter of Sir
John Eardley Wilmot Inglis, who commanded the British forces at the
Siege of Lucknow, and
Julia Selina Thesiger. Ashton was educated at
Winchester College; on leaving Winchester in 1917 he joined the
Royal Field Artillery as an officer and served for the rest of
World War I. He was awarded the
Military Cross, the citation for which appeared in
The London Gazette in January 1919, and reads as follows: After the war, which ended due to the
armistice with Germany on 11 November 1918, he went up to
Trinity College, Cambridge.
Cricket career As a cricketer, Ashton was a sound right-hand batsman in the outstanding
Cambridge University sides in the years just after the
First World War, in which he had been commissioned in the
Royal Field Artillery and won the
Military Cross, and he played for
Essex in the vacations. In both 1921 and 1922 he scored more than 1,000 runs and at the end of the 1922 season, after just three years in first-class cricket, Ashton was averaging more than 46 runs per innings. His most famous exploit, though, was as a member of the amateur side assembled by
Archie MacLaren to take on the hitherto-invincible 1921
Australian cricket team at
Eastbourne. Bowled out for just 43 runs in the first innings, the so-called "England XI" were, at 60 for four wickets in their second innings, still 71 behind when Ashton was joined by
Aubrey Faulkner. Ashton hit 75 in 72 minutes, Faulkner made 153 and McLaren's side won the match by 28 runs. Ashton was named as a
Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1922 largely on account of this innings. Ashton was involved in an extraordinary incident during the match against
Lancashire. He was bowled, but both bails went up in the air and then returned to their grooves on top of the stumps, meaning that he was not out. Ashton's three brothers,
Gilbert,
Percy and
Claude, also played first-class cricket; Gilbert, Hubert and Claude captained Cambridge University in the three consecutive seasons from 1921 to 1923. At the end of the 1922 cricket season Ashton joined the
Burmah Oil Company, and his appearances thereafter were sporadic. He played for
India and for
Burma against the
Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) side led by
Arthur Gilligan that toured India in 1926–27; he reappeared for several Essex matches in 1927; and there were a handful of first-class games across the 1930s, the last in 1939.
Football career Ashton was also an accomplished
footballer, playing as an amateur for all his footballing career, which began with the
Corinthians and then, during the 1919–20 season,
West Bromwich Albion. He made his only appearance in the
Football League in May 1925 for
Bristol Rovers against
Reading. In the
1959 Birthday Honours, Ashton was appointed a
Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) for political and public services, and it was as Sir Hubert Ashton that he became MCC president in 1960–61. Ashton died in
South Weald, Essex on 17 June 1979.
Personal life In 1927 Ashton married Dorothy Gaitskell, sister of
Hugh Gaitskell. They had two sons and two daughters. ==References==