Lives in Cricket No 51 - Rev ES Carter

Chapter one Family, Oxford (cricket and rowing), and Victoria, Australia The name ‘Edmund Sardinson Carter’ sounds rather grand. Sardinson as a Christian name is unusual. That name was, however, the surname of Edmund’s mother, she being being born probably in 1807, and baptised on 8 September 1807 at the Anglican Church of St Mary’s in Nottingham. Her full name was Frances Sardinson and she was a child of Thomas and Elizabeth Sardinson. Census records for 1841 and 1851 stated her birth year as being 1811 and 1808 respectively, and her death certificate also puts her birth year as 1808. However the baptismal certificate may be better evidence for 1807 being the correct year of birth. By 1830 Frances was living in the village of Broughton Sulney, just in Nottinghamshire and 12 miles down the road leading from Nottingham to Melton Mowbray. Within a mile or so from Broughton Sulney the road crossed the Leicestershire border. The village, sometimes also once called Over Broughton, is today known as Upper Broughton to distinguish it from its near Leicestershire neighbour, the village of Nether Broughton. The parish church by the mid 19th century was in the patronage of Sir Joseph Radcliffe of Campsall in Yorkshire and Sir Joseph was a predecessor of Sir Everard Joseph Radcliffe, captain of the Yorkshire County Cricket Club in 1911. A few miles to the east from Broughton Sulney was the small town of Waltham on the Wolds. In 1830 a young man, William Carter, lived in and had been born at Waltham on the Wolds. The census of 1841 gave his birth year as 1806, but census forms for later years filled in by William gave his year of birth of 1804. When, how and why William and Frances met has not been discovered by this writer, and nor have been the prior circumstances of their two families. What is known is that William and Frances married in the parish church of Waltham on the Wolds on 31 July 1830. In an affidavit sworn by William on 13 July 1830, which led to the grant of his marriage licence, he stated that his occupation was a ‘clerk’, very probably meaning a Clerk in Holy Orders, and he and Frances remained married for 7