Family and Education

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Biography

Neither of the two men of this name found in contemporary records is likely to have sat in Parliament for Westbury: one was an alderman of Colchester and the other a lessee of land at Little Marlow, Buckinghamshire. Geoffrey Carter was probably a Wiltshireman belonging to one of the families of that name living in various parts of the county. One was centred on Salisbury, where a Thomas Carter was mayor in 1562, and another on Cricklade; a third had been settled since at least the mid 15th century at West Ashton and is found by the mid 16th at Steeple Ashton, a village less than five miles from Westbury. Since that borough was in the habit of drawing its Members from the neighbourhood it is likely that Carter was one of these, as was his fellow-Member William Hartgill. As a servant of Sir William Stourton, 7th Baron Stourton, Hartgill is thought to have owed his seat to his master’s friendship with the Earl of Hertford, but nothing has been found suggestive of a link between Carter and the earl save the appearance of a John Carter in a list of Hertford’s menial servants dating from 1536.

LP Hen. VIII, xiv, xvi; PCC 33 Alenger; CPR, 1548-9, p. 387; 1550-3, p. 427; Wilts. N. and Q. ii. 423; iii.; 324; vi. 397, 421, 426, 427, 455; vii. 85; viii. 316-17; Two Taxation Lists (Wilts. Arch. Soc. recs. br. x), passim; HMC Bath, iv. 327.

Ref Volumes: 1509-1558

Author: N. M. Fuidge

Notes