On 14 February 1886, a young Boarder, Rupert Cater, wrote a letter to his sister. Twelve year old Rupert had been enrolled at Newington, along with his younger brother Mars, just two and a half weeks before.

‘Dear Sister’, he wrote, ‘I am enjoying myself very much here, we have good fun, we play cricket every afternoon.’ Cricket was clearly his passion. The first Saturday he was at the College, he noted, there was a match between ‘the Balmain’s’ — probably the Balmain Surrey Cricket Club: in the years before the GPS competition, the College often played local adult clubs — and the Newington team. The latter did not do well on this occasion: ‘seven of them got out for a big duck’, Rupert reported.

The Boarding Master, Mr Baker, had given Rupert, his brother ‘Marsy’ and a number of other boys a very good set of cricket bats, reportedly worth fifteen shillings. This was Richard ‘Dickie’ Baker, who also taught Science and Drawing, served as Sports Master and commanded the Cadet Corps. ‘We played Marsy’s class & beat them … with only three out,’ Rupert declared.

Perhaps realising that his sister would like to read about something other than cricket, Rupert also described the Boarders’ morning routine. ‘A bell rings @ 6.30 & we have to be dressed by 7,’ he reported. ‘Then we go up to the school-room [now the Prescott Hall] to do our lessons till a quarter to eight’, when the boys went down to breakfast.

In adult life, Rupert became a solicitor and started the Griffith law firm Cater & Blumer, which still operates there and elsewhere in the Riverina. Our thanks are due to Mr Peter Gerarde-Smith, father of Karsten (Year 12), for sending us a copy of Rupert Cater’s letter, the original of which is held by a client of his.

David Roberts
College Archivist