Lives in Cricket No 50 - Tom Emmett

52 Yorkshire’s games against I Zingari and MCC in 1881 - Emmett stood down as captain and returned to the ranks when Rev. E.S.Carter was in the side, making some of his rare appearances for the county. 42 Carter, described in Holmes’ history as the ‘life and soul’ of the Yorkshire Gentlemen’s Cricket Club, also captained Yorkshire against the Australians in July 1878, a game Emmett which missed due to spraining his side. 43 Understanding the status of the Yorkshire Gentlemen’s Cricket Club helps us make sense of this situation. Established in 1863 in York, it was an amateur club set up with aristocratic support to play what were described as ‘gentlemen’s county matches’ with other amateur sides. The significance of the Yorkshire Gentlemen at the time is well covered in the biography of Lord Hawke by James Coldham, and suggests that, after years of a heavily professionalised Yorkshire side, led with varying degrees of success by paid men, by the end of the 1870s, the county club was looking for an amateur captain. Initially, however, the committee could not find anyone suitable in the ranks of the Yorkshire Gentlemen, the most obvious place to look. Rev.E.S.Carter was the leading member of the club, had appeared in Yorkshire games organised by Lord Londesborough in 1876 and 1877, and had also been chosen to play for Yorkshire against Nottinghamshire in August 1877. In general though, his duties as a clergyman meant that he was not available enough to be a realistic option, even if he had been considered good enough. It would appear, therefore, that Emmett was selected with the stated reservation, pending the time that someone suitable (an amateur who could hold his own in the side) could be found. On a few occasions, Yorkshire Captain 1878-1883 Reverend E.S.Carter, who replaced Emmett as captain on a few occasions.