Lives in Cricket No 51 - Rev ES Carter

Gentlemen of Yorkshire 63 James P. Coldham’s splendid 1990 biography of Lord Hawke – A Cricketing Legend and the report of the game comes from the York Herald . From 1879 and through the 1880s there is a familiar pattern to this social cricket, with the Gentlemen of Yorkshire usually having about 25 fixtures per season and Carter playing in a little over half of these. If not always top of the batting averages, he was generally amongst the top three batsmen in the side, several of whom played as amateurs on occasion for Yorkshire. In 1879 the Honourable Martin Hawke, still a schoolboy at Eton, was also playing for the Gentlemen, probably for the first time. He had a run of four consecutive two-day matches in August against the Revellers, Old Cliftonians, Anonymo, and Uppingham Rovers and twice made scores in excess of 40. Carter played in the games against the Cliftonians and Uppingham and would surely have again been impressed by the young confident Etonian. There was some controversy in 1880 when the gentlemen went during June on a southern tour, playing Richmond Gentlemen, the Gentlemen of West Kent and the Royal Artillery. In an agreed 12-a-side match against Richmond Gentlemen, the most detailed report comes rather surprisingly from the Sunderland Daily Echo and Shipping Gazette . One of the Yorkshire Gentlemen failed to appear and Richmond allowed one of their professionals, named Bexon, to field for the Yorkshire side. He did not bat for his newly adopted side in their first innings where he is shown on the scorecard as ‘Bexon (emergency) absent 0’ but in the second innings when the Gentlemen were ten wickets down and still wanted a few runs to win, out he came and scored two not out to help win the game by one wicket. Carter played in that game and may well have been the Gentlemen’s captain, and his powers of persuasion may have been the reason that Bexon was allowed to bat. Martin Hawke, now aged 19, played one match for the Gentlemen on that tour (against the Royal Artillery) joining his mentor in the Gentlemen’s side. In June 1881 Carter and Hawke met again, this time on opposite sides, as the Gentlemen played the York Garrison with Hawke described on the scorecard as coming from the ‘Fifth West Yorks’