Lives in Cricket No 51 - Rev ES Carter

Ealing 32 rather fed up as Ealing showed not a grain of mercy compiling 255 for six before time was called. Tom Hearne senior scored 105 before being caught and bowled by another son, George Hearne, and Carter helped himself to 73 not out (rather than run out). The County Times having to show some neutrality between its two local clubs contented itself in the description of Hearne senior and Carter as ‘both well played and most undoubtedly fine specimens of batting’. That first season ended with a celebration dinner at The Railway Hotel. One can be sure that Edmund Carter’s name was much mentioned. But the gentlemanly nature of this club was revealed by the President when he said the real object of the club was ‘to promote what he might call the innocent amusements of the youth of the land and they could not better secure the object than by bringing all classes together – from the highest to the lowest – in one common institution like the present’. A Deacon of the Church of England When the season ended Carter had to give more thought to parish duties and to his own ordination. He sent in a formal application application to be ordained as a Deacon during November 1871, knowing that the Bishop of London would be carrying out an ordinations service in late December. These applications had to be made through the Diocese of London solicitor Mr J.B. Lee of the well-known firm in Broad Sanctuary, Westminster, later known as Lee, Bolton and Lee. Mr Lee made heavy weather of the application considering that Carter had not really spent long enough in his studies of divinity, but a letter from Carter - that “I was going up for my degree in June 1868, but taken ill and in consequence ordered on a voyage to Australia which took up a year” - was accepted as a suitable excuse; though maybe not many illnesses result in a medical order to voyage to the Antipodes. The London Metropolitan Archives holds papers relating to many of the ordinations in the Diocese of London carried out in the 19th century and within an envelope coming from the solicitor Mr Lee is a testimonial under seal – sealing wax impressed with a stamp – signed by the Provost of Worcester College, Richard