Lives in Cricket No 51 - Rev ES Carter

for his college in making 104 not out against Pembroke College. More significantly he did not this year play in the Varsity match following an attack of pleurisy arising from a thunderstorm soaking him whilst rowing in early June. He then started a match against Old Oxonians on 11 June but had to absent himself during the match. He did not play for an Oxford side again that summer as he was confined to bed for some weeks and into the summer vacation. The full reasons for his illness follow later in this account. Whilst detained in his rooms he planned a trip to Australia to improve his health and again details follow. Rowing at Oxford The number of Oxford Rowing Blues who also gained Cricketing Blues is extremely limited (as it is for Cambridge Blues). Edmund had rowed on the river at Durham for his school, so it was natural enough that he should want to follow that sport at Oxford. Records for Worcester College Rowing Club have survived and show that Edmund first participated in the College Junior Pairs competition in December 1864 and he then first rowed in the College boat in the Torpids of 1865. In Michaelmas Term 1865, in a contested election Edmund was elected to the College Committee which thoughout his time at Oxford appeared to have a number of stormy meetings arising from the strong personalities on that committee. It was not long before Edmund was winning college races despite, on one occasion, losing his rudder. In December 1866 he was chosen as one of two Worcester College members to compete in the Varsity Trial eights and success duly came his way when, in both 1867 rowing at number six, and 1868 rowing at number two, he was chosen for the Oxford Blues boat. The Worcester College Rowing Club were so delighted that they voted to pay any expenses that Edmund might incur whilst staying at Putney for the first of those races. Oxford had in the 1860s a strong winning streak against Cambridge, winning in nine consecutive races from 1861 and the Blues teams in which Edmund competed won by half a length in 1867. The 1867 contest was one of the most exciting of all Varsity Family 19