Lives in Cricket No 51 - Rev ES Carter

Gentlemen of Yorkshire 69 whom he led. He supported the York Amateur Rowing Club of which he became President, a position he held for more than 25 years. In 1890 he also joined the committee of the York White Rose Amateur Rowing Club, and he became a regular steward at the York Regatta. In another sport of which he became a great enthusiast Carter supported both the York Tricycle Club, and the York Star Cycling Club. By 1886 he was President of the York City and Suburban Bicycle Club. Cycling became quite a passion and it is not difficult to imagine Carter going from meeting to meeting on his own bike along the narrow lanes in central York saluting so many of the local residents that he would have known and receiving in return a happy chorus of replies. In 1892 at a club AGM he proclaimed that ‘of all forms of recreation there was none so healthy and exciting as cycling’. In 1883 he is reported as representing York at tennis in a doubles tournament against Newcastle, and by 1888 he was a Vice-President of York Football Club. This was a rugby football club, not an association football club, and perhaps his interest in rugby was not too great for in 1893 he only attended one out of 41 engagements at his club. In the 1890s he became a Vice- President of the York Amateur Swimming Club and Humane Society. Finally in this list of sporting connections, he became in 1895 a Vice-President of the York Hockey Club of which Lord Hawke was President, and whose games were played during the winter on the Yorkshire Gentlemen’s cricket ground. This wide interest in so many games led him to be a Patron of the Sportsman Exhibition at the Agricultural Hall in London in 1883, with ten dukes, 23 earls, eight viscounts, 25 barons, seven honourables, 13 baronets and just one other clergyman. Carter was very aware of sport having an influence for good in the lives of young people and he was not afraid to engage the attention of others who might have both influence and money to support sporting activity. In York his energy and personal ability in so many sports must have been an enormous bonus to the city.