Lives in Cricket No 51 - Rev ES Carter

for long, for by the end of the first day they were batting again having shot out New South Wales for just 37, with that admirable bowler F.E. Allan taking eight for 20 in 22.2 overs. When Victoria batted again they were three wickets down for 20 runs, but Carter batting at number five held the innings together with an admirable 63 out of a total of 149. The Sydney Morning Herald reported that Carter “played with an ability that surprised his confreres as much as it baffled his opponents. He was at the crease for two and a half hours and his innings was made up by 11 twos and 41 singles.” This innings then became his then highest first-class score beating a previous best of 51. His satisfaction would have been compounded by New South Wales being bowled in their second innings with this time Tom Willis as destroyer, taking seven for 44. Victoria won by 78 runs. More satisfaction was to follow for he was given an inscribed bat to record his efforts. The inscription read “Presented by the N.S.W Cricket Association to Edmund S. Carter, for highest score in the intercolonial match, New South Wales v Victoria, March 1869”. The bat remained in his various clerical homes for the remainder of his life and was adorned, as mentioned earlier, with other silver plaques to record other subsequent cricketing feats. When the then Reverend Carter died in 1923 he left by a codicil to his will “my books and photographs of cricket, and other sports, and my two oars, cricket bat with the silver shields unto my two sons Edmund Sardinson and William Morris to be divided between them in equal shares at their discretion but in case of difference my eldest son to have priority of choice...” Edmund Sardinson Dashwood Carter was the eldest son and a good schoolboy cricketer at St Peter’s, York, and later a Yorkshire Gentlemen player, so it is likely that he inherited the cricket bat, but there is no mention of it in his will when he died in 1948, nor any mention in his own son’s will (another Edmund Sardinson Carter) when he died in 2002. We now know that the bat was left by a Mr Carter to Yorkshire County Cricket Club. On 23 March 1869, with good health restored, Edmund Carter rejoined the Agamemnon for the long journey home. At some stage he was invited to bring his own touring side to Australia but nothing came of this and Carter did not visit Australia again. He Family 24