Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 09.djvu/208

 Irishman and of the Roman catholic religion (, Dict.;, Pursuits of Literature (7th ed.), Dial. iv. 1. 297 and note) seem to be erroneous (See Gent. Mag., 1818, vol. lxxxviii. pt. i. pp. 273-6). It has also been erroneously stated that there is a memoir of him by the Rev. W. J. Dampier. This refers to John Carter (1815-1850) [q. v.]

 CARTER, JOHN (1815–1850), a silk-weaver, who, having lost by accident the power of using hands, learned the art of drawing by holding the pencil or brush in his mouth, was born of humble parents at Coggeshall, in the coumty of Essex, on 31 July 1815. After attending the dame's school and the national school of the village, he was sent in his thirteenth year to an endowed school, where he remained two years. Here he gave some evidence of his remarkable artistic gifts by a tendency to scribble figures on his desk or copybook instead of doing his lessons; but, on account of untoward circumstances, his gifts were not developed further.

On leaving school he was apprenticed to a silk- weaver, and after his marriage in 1835 pursued the business on his own account. In May 1836, while climbing a tree in search of birds, he fell forty feet to the ground, receiving such serious injury to the spine as to deprive him of nearly all power of muscular motion below the neck. Having accidentally learned that a young woman who had lost the use of her hands had learned to draw with her mouth, he resolved if possible to turn his artistic gifts to account in a similar way. By dogged perseverance he mastered all the technicalities of drawing without personal instruction, and acquired such proficiency as would have done credit to him even had he possessed the use of his hands. He devoted himself chiefly to line-drawing, and, by holding the pencil or brush between his teeth, was able to produce the most accurate and delicate strokes. With the help of an attendant to supply his materials, he produced drawings of great beauty and of thorough artistic finish in every detail.

On 21 May 1850 the small carriage in which he was drawn was accidentally overturned, and his system received so severe a shock that he never recovered, dying on 4 June following. The Rev. W. J. Dampier, vicar of Coggeshall, published a memoir in 1850 (reissued in 1875). A list of eighty-seven of Carter's drawings is given, with the names of the owners. They include drawings after Albert Durer, Raphael, Rembrandt, Vandyke, and Landseer. They resemble line-engravings and, as Mr. Richmond tells the author of the book, the power of imitation is most extraordinary.

 CARTER, LAWRENCE (1672–1745), judge, was born at Leicester in 1672. His family came originally from Hitchin in Hertfordshire. His father, Lawrence Carter, married Mary, daughter of Thomas Wadland of Newark, Leicester, the solicitor to whom he was articled; was M.P. for the town in several parliaments of William III (see, vi. 6, 11, 14), of whom he was a firm supporter, and in 1685 projected and carried out a system of water supply for Leicester. The son became a member of Lincoln's Inn, and on 1 Sept. 1697 was unanimously elected recorder of his native town in succession to Sir Nathan Wright, which office he held till 1729. He represented Leicester in parliament thrice, in 1698, 1701, and 1722, and Beeralston in 1710, 1714, and 1715; but no speeches of his are extant. In 1715 he was counsel for the crown against several of the rebel prisoners, first at Liverpool with Sir Francis Page, king's serjeant, and then at Carlisle on a special commission with Mr. Baron Fortescue. Before leaving town Fortescue was promised a fee of 500l., and as Carter had had the same fee as Page at Liverpool he applied to the treasury for the like treatment with Fortescue at Carlisle. In Dec. 1715 he became solicitor-general to the Prince of Wales, afterwards George II, was appointed serjeant-at-law in 1724, and was made king's serjeant 30 April, and knighted 4 May in the same year. On 16 Oct. 1726 he was raised to the bench of the court of exchequer in succession to Baron Price, and continued in the office till his death. He lived in Redcross Street, Newark, Leicester, in a house built on the site of the collegiate church, which was destroyed at the Reformation. He was highly esteemed in the town, and with his half brother Thomas was a trustee of the Holbech charity. He died 14 March