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Unsettled Years
Failure at Piddlehinton
When Carter came to Clewer
"Papistical Practices"
Canon Carter in Clewer
Carter's Response
Retirement
Carter's Passing
The Last Article
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CARTER : THE PRODUCTIVE YEARS OF "RETIREMENT"
Thomas Carter’s years as Warden of the Convent were, from a public point of
view, eneventful. He faithfully ministered to the Sisters and he exercised a
loving oversight of the many branch institutions in various parts of the
country, and, indeed, in other parts of the world.
However, those years were immensely productive in terms of his literary
output, and his writings exerted an enormous influence over the Church at large.
From the time of his retirement Carter was responsible for close on 40
publications. Some of these were aids to prayer, some dealt with theological
matters. In the first category were (for example) his Book of Family Prayer and
(most famously in its time) A Treasury of Devotion which, by the time Carter
died, had gone into eleven editions.
In the second category were his Parish Teachings (Series 1 and 2) and The
Roman Question. He also published a number of biographies. These included a Life
of Harriet Monsell, the first Mother Superior of the Clewer Convent, and
Nicholas Ferrar (1592-1637) who founded a community of married people at Little
Gidding in Huntingdonshire. He also wrote (in 1896) a Life of John Kettlewell,
(1653-95) who was a "Nonjuror". These were the clergy who, after 1688,
would not take the Oath of Allegiance to William and Mary on the grounds that by
doing so they would be breaking their oath to James II and his successors. John
Kettlewell was, because of his writings, deprived of his living in 1690 and
spent his remaining years in writing books of devotrion and controversial
tracts. Thus can be seen, in Carter’s chice of subjects, affinities with his
own beliefs and experience.
In those days theological writings were of intense interest to the educated
public, and so it happened that Carter’s influence, in the Church at large,
grew enormously during the years when he was othewise out of the public eye.
Denis Shaw
FOOTNOTE: In my copy of The Priest’s Prayerbook, which is dated 1921 (pub.
Longmans, Green & Co.) there is a list of "recommended books" and
five of these are by T.T.Carter.
D.S.
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