Lives in Cricket No 51 - Rev ES Carter

103 Festival consisted of three consecutive matches broken only by a Sunday when no match would be played. The pattern was the same each year, and taking 1908 as an example Yorkshire would first play MCC on a match starting on a Monday, then the Gentlemen and Players match would start on the Thursday and finally on the following Monday Lord Londesborough’s Eleven would play a specially selected side – that in 1908 being MCC’s Australian team (comprising players about to tour Australia). In those Edwardian days there were three Gentlemen versus Players matches in every season, at Lord’s, The Oval and Scarborough. In 1909 Lord Londesborough’s side played the Australian tourists, and in 1910 his team played MCC’s South African team. In 1911 there was another MCC Australian team to watch. In 1912, the year of the England, Australia, South Africa tournament Lord Londesborough’s team played consecutive matches against the two touring sides to follow Yorkshire’s match against MCC, and in 1913, there being no touring side in the country, or contemplated to travel that winter, the Londesborough Eleven played the champion county who that year were Kent. The Lord Londesborough in these Edwardian years was the once young man to whom Carter had presented a claret jug in 1886. One can quite imagine Edmund Carter as a Vice-President of Yorkshire being active in the Scarborough pavilion at all these fixtures, mingling and chatting, giving guidance and making suggestions and generally playing a full hand in the well-being of the Festival. He would have perhaps stayed in Scarborough for the full first week, hurrying home on the Saturday evening to preside the next day at Thwing church and then returning on the Monday morning – or maybe arranging for a colleague to cover for him on the Sabbath day at Thwing. If during the season he had wanted to watch other cricket then Yorkshire played each year a game or two at Hull, and the Second Eleven played at Bridlington. So his appetite for the game could be reasonably satisfied, though the sudden outbreak of war in 1914 led to the whole Festival for that year being cancelled. No one knew then of the turmoil and horrors to come Old Ebor, Hawke, Thwing