Lives in Cricket No 51 - Rev ES Carter

Parish of St. Mary. St Mary’s Church is today used as a Russian Orthodox church, the Church of England having lost for a variety of reasons many of the working churches that it used 150 years ago. It is somewhat startling to read that in 1881 Carter’s household comprised 16 people including his then eight children aged ten, nine, eight, six, five, four, two and less than one. Since leaving Ealing his wife had given birth to Charles (born 1876), Mary (born 1877), Ernest (born 1879) and Lucy (born 1881 before the census was taken). Charles, Mary and Ernest were all born at Clifton Lawn in York, a grand house probably then a nursing or maternity home. If that number of children were not enough to manage, on census day there were also two nieces staying with the family, all of whom were supported by four female domestic servants; two of whom had the additional title of nurse but of whom only one was also described as cook. What a task that last lady, Jane Simpson aged 26, had. The church buildings of St Martin-cum-Gregory are of sufficient significance to be listed grade one by English Heritage, a church being on the site since the 11th century. Initially named St Martin’s Church it was merged with St Gregory’s Church in 1585 then acquiring its current name. It was extensively restored in 1875, just before Carter arrived in York, at a time when the Church of England may have been at its zenith, but a slow decline developed throughout the 20th century. Having taken over St Gregory in 1585, it merged with another Micklegate church, Holy Trinity, in 1953 but that did not halt for long the downward movement in congregation numbers. Redundancy as a place of worship of the Church of England followed and after a period when the building remained closed, it was used as a public hall, but now more happily and since 2008, as a stained glass centre. Edmund Carter would have been saddened at the decline, but his public-spirited work in York in other areas of life would probably have made him pleased that a good use had been found for the building. St Michael-le-Belfrey Church A paragraph, entitled Ecclesiastical Intelligence, in the Morning York 46