Monument of that worthy Man, Mr. John Carter,’ London, with dedications to ‘the Lady Frances Hobarte,’ and others. It was republished in Samuel Clarke's ‘Collection of the Lives of Ten Eminent Divines’ in 1662.
A fine portrait, engraved by Robert Vaughan, is prefixed to each edition of the life. Carter was the author of ‘A Plaine and Compendious Exposition of Christ's Sermon on the Mount,’ London, 1627, and of an unpublished petition to James I for the removal of burdensome ceremonies.
[Davy's Athenæ Suffolc. i. 327, in Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 19165; Neal's Hist. of the Puritans; Clarke's Lives; Carter's Tombstone, as above.]
CARTER, JOHN, the younger (d. 1655), divine, son of John Carter the elder [q. v.], born in his father's parish of Bramford, was admitted to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, in 1596, proceeded B.A. 1599, and M.A. 1603. He was chosen by the parishioners curate or assistant minister of St. Peter Mancroft, Norwich, in 1631; was appointed one of the four lecturers in 1633 to preach the Tuesday lectures at St. Peter's according to the order of the assembly; and in 1638 became parish chaplain or head minister, which post he retained for nearly fifteen years. In three sermons, preached before the Norwich corporation, in celebration of the guild festivals of 1644, 1647, and 1650 (see The Nail and the Wheel, 1647; A rare sight, or the Lyon, 1650), he vehemently attacked the magistrates for their weak-kneed devotion to presbyterianism. The violence of his language and his fanatical denunciations of monarchy caused his removal from the ministry, and at the close of 1653 he calls himself ‘preacher of the Gospel, and as yet sojourning in the city of Norwich.’ He was afterwards minister of St. Lawrence, Norwich, and died in that city on 10 Dec. 1655. John Collings, B.D., preached the funeral sermon on 14 Dec. Carter wrote the memoir of his father entitled ‘The Tombstone’ in 1653.
[Davy's Athenæ Suffolc. i. 393, in Brit. Mus. Addit. MS. 19165; Masters's Hist. of C.C.C. Camb. p. 264; Blomefield's Norfolk, iv. 188–9; Brit. Mus. Cat.]
CARTER, JOHN (1748–1817), draughtsman and architect, the son of Benjamin Carter, a marble-carver established in Piccadilly,was born on 22 June 1748. At an early age he was sent to a boarding-school at Battersea, and afterwards to one in Kennington Lane, and at this period, according to one of his biographers, 'his genius began to unfold itself in practising musick on the English flute, and making attempts at drawing.' Carter had always a love for music, and mention is made of two operas named 'The White Rose' and 'The Cell of St. Oswald,' 'which he not only wrote [apparently for private theatricals], but set to musick, and painted the scenery adapted to them,' exhibiting them 'upon a small stage.' Leaving school when only about twelve, he went home to his father, 'under whose roof he prosecuted the art of design, making working drawings for the men.' About 1764 (his father having died), Carter was taken into the office of a Mr. Joseph Dixon, surveyor and mason, with whom he remained for some years. In 1774 he was employed to execute drawings for the 'Builder's Magazine,' 'periodical edited by Newbery of St. Paul's Churchyard, and for this he continuedto draw until 1786. In one of its numbers he published a design for a sessions house, which was afterwards copied by some unscrupulous person, who sent it in as his own original design, on the occasion of a competition for the building of a sessions house on Clerkenwell Green. This copied drawing was successful, and the building was erected in accordance with it, while a new design which Carter himself sent in for the competition was rejected by the judges.
In 1780, on the recommendation of the Rev. Dr. Lort, Carter was employed by the Society of Antiquaries to do some drawing and etching. He was elected a fellow of the society in March 1795, and worked much for it as its draughtsman. In 1780 he had drawn for Richard Gough, afterwards his great patron, the west front of Croyland Abbey Church, and many other subjects, which were inserted in Gough's 'Sepulchral Monuments' and in his other works. Gough, in the preface to his 'History of Croyland Abbey' (1783), and in the preface to his 'Sepulchral Monuments' (1786), speaks highly of Carter's abilities. In 1781, and later. Carter also met with other patrons and friends, among whom were John Soane, the architect, the Rev. Dr. John Milner, Sir Henry Charles Englefield, William Bray, F.S.A., Sir Richard Colt Hoare, the Earl of Exeter, and Horace Walpole. His first important published work was his 'Specimens of Ancient Sculpture and Painting.' published in parts (folio size) from 1780 till 1794. The engraved title-page of vol. i. is 'Specimens of the Antient Sculpture and Painting now remaining in this Kingdom, from the earliest period to the reign of Henry ye VIII, consisting of Statues, Bassorelievos ... Paintings on Glass and on Walls ... A description of each subject, some of which
