Lives in Cricket No 51 - Rev ES Carter

Peate, Hawke, Committee 87 “I dare say it will be known that for several years I got up the Yorkshire Eleven for the Scarboro’ Carnival, but it may not so well known that it was I who first invited Lord Hawke to play for Yorkshire. I got Lord Hawke (then the Hon.M.B.) to play at Scarboro’, and the year afterwards he took his place in the County team. He said to me the other day [1898] that it was best day’s work I ever did for him when I asked him to play for Yorkshire in that Scarboro’ week.” From that match against MCC onwards Carter and Hawke became the greatest of friends and never ceased to pass compliments about each other. After the MCC game came the Yorkshire match against I Zingari in which Hawke also played: “Each innings I was at the wicket with Parson Carter. He had been a double Blue – and a genuine one. The good old double Blue meant you had played for the Eleven and rowed in the Eight. Canon Carter never forgot he had introduced me into the Yorkshire Eleven and was very proud of the fact. Even in my day he still retained his brilliant cutting, and was a most active field.” In 1882 Hawke was at Cambridge for the early part of the season and then played for Yorkshire under the captaincy of Tom Emmett. When Hawke came down from university in 1883 he took over the captaincy from Emmett and retained it until his retirement as a player in 1910. His presidency of the county club lasted from 1898 until his death in 1938. Carter had made for himself a most influential friend, and though Carter’s own Yorkshire first-class career ended in 1881, the relationship between the two men must have been helpful in the Yorkshire committee work that was to follow for both of them. The Yorkshire Committee The Yorkshire County Cricket Club in its current form was founded in 1863. At its outset it had a strong Sheffield bias with the committee coming from that city and many matches played