Lives in Cricket No 51 - Rev ES Carter

The cricket bat referred to above also has plaques attached to it that record Carter’s hundreds. There are six in total and though they do not specify the team for which Carter played, three centuries may have been for the Yorkshire Gentlemen – 1866, 105 versus Gentlemen of Warwickshire; 1875, 105 versus South Yorkshire; and 1885 (when aged 40) 115 versus Foxhunters. Then there was a score of 109 not out for Yorkshire Revellers against Wakefield in 1877. The other two centuries were scored at Oxford. Edmund at Oxford, and his Oxford cricket Unlike two of his brothers, who both went to Cambridge University, Edmund on leaving school hadwanted to go toOxford, and Worcester College. He matriculated at Oxford, gaining entry to the university, on 19 May 1864. He went up to his college with the benefit of an Eaton Scholarship. This scholarship, no longer awarded in modern times, dated back to a bequest made by Miss Sarah Eaton in 1739. Miss Eaton, daughter of Byrom Eaton, Doctor of Divinity, Principal of Gloucester Hall, left her own freehold estates to Worcester College to maintain six fellowships and five scholarships confined only to the sons of clergymen. Edmund, as a scholarship holder, may have disappointed his tutors; for after two years’ study he only, in 1866, achieved a third class honours in Classical Moderations and worse was to follow for, though he later obtained a BA, the Oxford Historical Register gives no information about a final honours school suggesting that he only took a pass degree rather than an individual subject. Any deficiency in studying may have been due to his extensive sporting activity. He left the college in 1868 and later (in 1871) was granted his MA. Cricket at Oxford 1865-68 Worcester College no longer possess their scorebooks for the 1860s but do have some minute books for their cricket club. The minutes are scanty but show that Edmund was elected to the cricket club committee in the Lent Term (now Hilary Term) Family 14