Lives in Cricket No 51 - Rev ES Carter

Ealing 29 Mr Butterworth seconded the proposition ‘that a club be at once formed to be called the Ealing Cricket Club’. Further detail can be found in the 1871 pages of the Middlesex County Times, and in the 1970 history of the club written by Sam Kelso. The March motion having been passed, a committee of nine was established, land was hired at the Royal India Asylum, the local MP, the Right Honourable S.H. Walpole became President, and the Reverend Hilliard became Treasurer. His industrious curate the Reverend Carter joined Mr Butterworth as joint secretaries. All this information was discovered in 1970 following destruction of earlier minute books by a previous Secretary and at a time when centenary celebrations were about to start, and therefore came a year early! No chairman was named or appointed and the first founder members were declared to be four clergymen, the Reverends Carter and Hilliard, with the Reverends L. Clarke and J. Summer- Hayes. Perhaps of even more importance, the first captain was declared to be the Reverend Edmund Carter and he remained in that post from 1871 to 1875. The modern historians of Ealing Cricket Club have ascertained that 12 matches were played in that first season, of which ten were won, and that Edmund Carter scored the first half century – 73 run out against Somerset House. Another early active participant in the club, Tom Hearne senior, the Middlesex professional, scored the first century. Edmund Carter told Old Ebor for Talks with Old Yorkshire Cricketers that Tom Hearne had been a founder member with him. In view of the detail given above, one may wonder if here is a case of the Gentlemen of Ealing not wanting to acknowledge the help of a cricketing artisan. Late in 1871 a field was found, owned by a Mr Johnson, who was willing to lease it for nine years, for cricketing purposes. That field in Corfton Road, now beautifully kept and maintained, still remains today the home of Ealing Cricket Club and was purchased by the club in 1914. A picture of the ground taken in the early 19th century is to be found in Mr Hounsell’s book. There were then already at least two cricket clubs in Ealing, the oldest being Ealing Dean Cricket Club formed in 1862, and the West Ealing Club of which Tom Hearne had been a founding member.