Thomas Carte 1686-1754

Thomas CARTE 1686-1754

Biographical Note

Son of Samuel Carte, vicar of Clifton upon Dunsmore, Warwickshire. BA brasenose College, Oxford 1702, MA King's College, Cambridge 1706. He was appointed reader at Bath Abbey Church in 1707, but in 1714 he refused to take the oaths to George I and was deprived. He became interested in antiquarian research but in 1722 he had to flee to France as a suspected Jacobite, returning to England in 1728. He then developed a career as a historian, and after research in Ireland as well as London he published a two-volume Life of James, Duke of Ormond in 1736. His substantial History of England appeared in 4 volumes, 1747-55, but he published numerous other historical and political works, and remained connected with anti-Hanoverian causes.

Books

Carte assembled a library to support his historical work and used an engraved armorial bookplate (Franks 5258). He gave 56 volumes of his manuscript collections to the Bodleian Library in 1753-54. The extent of his library is not known; in his will, which has no mention of his library, he left most of his estate to his wife (including his copyrights and any proceeds from them).

Characteristic Markings

Carte sometimes inscribed his books "T. Carte".

Sources

• Will of Thomas Carte, the National Archives PROB 11/811/374.
• Gambier Howe, E. R. J. Franks bequest: catalogue of British and American book plates bequeathed to the ... British Museum. London, 1903-4.
• Handley, Stuart. "Carte, Thomas (bap. 1686, d. 1754), historian." Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.