He is best remembered for captaining Surrey to a string of wins in the County Championship around the time it became official in 1890, aided by the bowler George Lohmann and back up by John Sharpe and William Lockwood.

At first, rewards for this move were slow and Surrey entered a crisis around 1883 - by which time Shuter had become established as one of the best batsmen in England despite a number of failures for the Gentlemen against the Players in the years since 1879.

However, after overcoming the crisis Surrey rapidly developed into a top-flight county side through Lohmann's bowling, which headed the list of first-class wicket-takers for seven successive years from 1885 to 1891.

He continued though, to play a major role as captain of Surrey until 1893, when owing to the failure of Abel and their other top batsmen, they declined from first to sixth among nine counties.

His only subsequent first-class match was for Surrey against Oxford University in 1909 at the age of fifty-four - with a team including Bill Hitch, over thirty-one years younger.