Thomas Carter PC (Ire) (c. 1690 – 3 September 1763) was an Anglo-Irish politician who served as the

Master of the Rolls The Keeper or Master of the Rolls and Records of the Chancery of England, known as the Master of the Rolls, is the President of the Court of Appeal (England and Wales)#Civil Division, Civil Division of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales ...

and Secretary of State in Ireland. British writer

Horace Walpole Horatio Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford (; 24 September 1717 – 2 March 1797), better known as Horace Walpole, was an English Whig politician, writer, historian and antiquarian. He had Strawberry Hill House built in Twickenham, southwest London ...

described him as "an able and intriguing man".

Education

Carter entered

Trinity College, Dublin Trinity College Dublin (), officially titled The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity of Queen Elizabeth near Dublin, and legally incorporated as Trinity College, the University of Dublin (TCD), is the sole constituent college of the Univ ...

on 9 January 1701, and graduated B.A. in 1710.

Political career

Carter was Member of Parliament MP for Trim in County Meath, from 1719 to 1727. In 1727 he was returned as a member for Hillsborough,

Dungarvan Dungarvan () is a coastal town and harbour in County Waterford, on the south-east coast of Ireland. Prior to the merger of Waterford County Council with Waterford City Council in 2014, Dungarvan was the county town and administrative centre of ...

, and Lismore, but chose to sit for Hillsborough, and held the seat until 1761. The Carters were a political family. Thomas Carter, the first to live at Castlemartin which he acquired in 1729, was made Master of the Rolls in Ireland in 1731, which office he had continued to hold until 1754. He was a skilful and experienced parliamentarian and political organiser. A strong, if not often violent Whig, noted for his rudeness and his loathing of English ministerial interference in Irish affairs and his satirical lampooning of political opponents earned him the nickname "Vicious Carter". During the late 1740s, Carter became one of the leaders of the country of Ireland as a member of the Patriot party along with Henry Boyle, speaker of the

Irish House of Commons The Irish House of Commons was the lower house of the Parliament of Ireland that existed from 1297 until the end of 1800. The upper house was the Irish House of Lords, House of Lords. The membership of the House of Commons was directly elected, ...

and Anthony Malone, the Prime Sergeant. He was made Master of the Rolls in 1731 but as one of the parliamentary managers employed by the

Lord Lieutenant A lord-lieutenant ( ) is the British monarch's personal representative in each lieutenancy area of the United Kingdom. Historically, each lieutenant was responsible for organising the county's militia. In 1871, the lieutenant's responsibility ov ...

to ensure that the King's business was passed in the House of Commons, his actions were often maverick.

said of him that he had "Constantly fomented every discontent against the Lord Lieutenants in order to be bought off". Such behaviour was common in 18th-century politics where interest was so often for sale. Quite content to "feather his own nest", Carter did not always help his colleagues.

The Money Bill dispute

Both the zenith and the nadir of Carter's career came during the Money Bill dispute of the 1750s. The crisis came in 1753–56 when the Chancellor of the Exchequer of Ireland, Henry Boyle, refused to hand over an Irish tax surplus to London. As a result, Primate Stone Archbishop of Armagh, tried to reduce the influence of the leading parliamentary undertakers; Speaker Boyle, Anthony Malone and Thomas Carter. The archbishop tried to replace them with his own supporters, the Ponsonbys led by the Earl of Bessborough. Boyle, Malone and Carter whipped up popular support, turning the issue into a trial of strength between the Lord Lieutenant and the country or "Patriot" party. Boyle, helped by Carter's wickedly provocative tongue, began a whispering campaign against Primate Stone. There was a personal antagonism between Carter and Primate Stone as the latter had been instrumental in foiling Carter's attempts to obtain the reversion of his office of Master of the Rolls for his young unknown and inexperienced son. The whole episode of the Money Bill dispute, the motives, intrigues, manoeuvrings and chicanery was wittily and ironically described by Edmund Sexton Pery, an eye-witness and MP for Wicklow town. His description is written in the form of a letter to the Duke of Bedford around the time he was appointed Lord Lieutenant in 1757. The dispute became an oft-quoted precedent to the policy of the

Irish Patriot Party The Irish Patriot Party was the name of a number of different political groupings in Ireland throughout the 18th century. They were primarily supportive of British Whig Party, Whig concepts of personal liberty combined with an Irish identity that ...

of the 1780s.

Family

Thomas Carter was born in 1690, the son of Thomas Carter (1650–1726) and his wife born Margaret Houghton, of Robertstown, County Kildare. He was educated at

and the

King's Inns The Honorable Society of King's Inns () is the "Inn of Court" for the Bar of Ireland. Established in 1541, King's Inns is Ireland's oldest school of law and one of Ireland's significant historical environments. The Benchers of King's Inns aw ...

. He married on 12 October 1719 at St Anne's, Dublin, Mary Claxton, youngest daughter of Thomas Claxton of Dublin and Lucy Pearce, and so first-cousin of

Edward Lovett Pearce Edward Lovett Pearce (1699 – 7 December 1733) was an Irish architect, and the chief exponent of Palladianism in Ireland. He is thought to have initially studied as an architect under his father's first cousin, Sir John Vanbrugh. He is best ...

who built them a magnificent house at No.9 Henrietta Street with the finest staircase hall in Dublin. They had two sons and three daughters. Their daughter Frances was the mother of Frances, Lady Jersey. Their daughter Susan was a grandmother of Elizabeth, Marchioness of Thomond. Through Frances, they are ancestors of

Diana, Princess of Wales Diana, Princess of Wales (born Diana Frances Spencer; 1 July 1961 – 31 August 1997), was a member of the British royal family. She was the first wife of Charles III (then Prince of Wales) and mother of Princes William, ...

, and of her sons, Princes William, the Prince of Wales, and Harry, Duke of Sussex. Thomas Carter made significant contributions to farming and country pursuits, not sparing any expense to bring them to perfection. He imported the best breed of cattle. Castle Martin in the snow

He originally leased Castle Martin in the early 1730s as his country seat, and did not buy the house and that estate until 1761, just two years before he died while staying with his elder son, Thomas MP, at Rathnally House, Trim. Twelve days after his father's deathThe puzzling behavior of (cattle-breeder) father and son might be explained if the, evidently kindly regarded, younger Thomas, MP, (dead by 1766 when his widow remarried) had been crippled in his youth by

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB), also known colloquially as the "white death", or historically as consumption, is a contagious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can al ...

and forbidden by his father to marry for fear of passing on the then mysterious bovine-sourced infection. A male heir (not the heiress that resulted) may have had a good case to obtain his grandfather's estates. Thomas proceeded with his marriage to Anna Armytage, daughter of the Yorkshire baronet Sir Samuel Armytage, but they had just one child, Mary, later Mrs Skeffington Thompson, before young Thomas Carter MP himself died. So Carter was succeeded at Castlemartin by his second son Henry Boyle Carter, named after his father's friend and political ally, Speaker Boyle. In 1750 Henry married Susanna Shaen, widow of James Wynne, daughter of Sir Arthur Shaen, 2nd baronet, and his

Catholic The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...

wife Susanna Magan, by whom Henry had three sons and one daughter. (see Carter-Campbell of Possil). Carter's descendants continued to live at Castlemartin until they sold the estate to the Blackers in 1850.

Thomas Carter (1650–1726) M.P. father of Thomas Carter (1690–1763)

Thomas Carter the elder was obviously a very ambitious young man, he married firstly Margaret Houghton (c. 1660-1696) on 16 December 1681 at St. Audoen's Church, Dublin. During the revolution, he served with distinction at Derry and the Boyne where according to Burke's Irish Landed Gentry (1850 edition) he secured books and writings belonging to

James II of England James II and VII (14 October 1633 – 16 September 1701) was King of England and Monarchy of Ireland, Ireland as James II and King of Scotland as James VII from the death of his elder brother, Charles II of England, Charles II, on 6 February 1 ...

. What happened to these papers is not known. He was elected as an MP to the

and became Second Sergeant at Arms being returned first for Fethard and then for Portarlington. He married secondly, Isabella, the dowager Countess Roscommon on 2 August 1702 by which marriage he acquired the extensive Roscommon estates in and around Trim. The Countess was born Isabella Boynton. They had no children and she died in 1721. Thomas Carter's father's seat was at Robertstown,

County Meath County Meath ( ; or simply , ) is a Counties of Ireland, county in the Eastern and Midland Region of Republic of Ireland, Ireland, within the Provinces of Ireland, province of Leinster. It is bordered by County Dublin to the southeast, County ...

References

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External links

9 Henrietta Street, Dublin
{{DEFAULTSORT:Carter, Thomas 1690s births 1763 deaths British Secretaries of State Members of the Privy Council of Ireland Masters of the Rolls in Ireland Irish MPs 1715–1727 Irish MPs 1727–1760 Members of the Parliament of Ireland (pre-1801) for County Meath constituencies Members of the Parliament of Ireland (pre-1801) for County Down constituencies Members of the Parliament of Ireland (pre-1801) for County Waterford constituencies Alumni of King's Inns