Charles Frederick Carter

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Professor Sir Charles Frederick Carter (August 15, 1919 – 27 June 2002) was an academic known primarily for his role as the founding Vice-Chancellor of Lancaster University.

Carter was born in Rugby to a father who was an electrical engineer and the developer of the Carter Coefficient and a mother who was an active member of the Society of Friends. He was educated at Rugby School and St John's College, Cambridge, where he read Mathematics and Economics and attained a First.

When World War II began Carter refused to fight as he was a conscientious objector and due to this he spent 3 months in prison. When released he joined the Friends' Relief Service, where he met Janet Shea whom he married in 1944.

In 1945 he returned to Cambridge where he became a lecturer in statistics and, from 1947 a fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge. He remained at Cambridge until 1952 when he took up the chair of applied economics at Queen's University, Belfast. Whilst there he became involved in The Troubles and concluded that a Protestant monopoly on power was unacceptable and could not be sustained. He also chaired the Northern Ireland Economic Development Council whilst in Northern Ireland. In 1959 he moved to the Stanley Jevons chair in Manchester remaining there for four years.

In 1963 became the founding Vice-Chancellor of the new University of Lancaster. He managed the admit the first 264 students in 1964, a year ahead of schedule, by utilising disused buildings as temporary accommodation and teaching facilities. Carter's vision was for Lancaster to be a university for the whole North West, commenting that the people of Lancashire thought of it as their university. He refused to "discrimination on the grounds of race, colour, politics or any other thing" and established links with various Higher Education Colleges. Thus pre-empting the drive for widening participation forty years later.

His tenure at the University of Lancaster ended in 1979, the same year he was knighted. He retired to Seascale, Cumbria and continued to work on projects he deemed to be worthwhile.

[edit] References

• Obituaries of Charles Carter
• History of Lancaster

Preceded by None

Vice-Chancellors of Lancaster University 1964–1979

Succeeded by Philip Reynolds