Edward Tremlett Carter
Edward Tremlett Carter (1866-1902)
1903 Obituary [1]
EDWARD TREMLETT CARTER, the Editor-in-Chief of the Electrician, was born in Calcutta in 1866, and was the eldest of ten surviving children.
He was brought to England at an early age, and was educated privately at Bristol, afterwards at the Merchant Venturers' College in that city, and finally at the Bristol University College, where he went through the Engineering and Physics courses under Professor Hele Shaw and Professor Silvanus P. Thompson.
Mr. Carter was for a short time demonstrator at the Bristol University College until he obtained an appointment at the School of Electrical Engineering and Submarine Telegraphy, Hanover Square, as assistant to the late Mr. Lant Carpenter, who was then principal. He was afterwards one of the lecturers at this school, where he organised several courses of lectures and practical training in mechanical engineering, machine design, and other branches of engineering, one of which formed the basis of a series of articles originally published in the Electrician on "Motive Power and Gearing for Electrical Machinery"; these articles were subsequently collected, revised, and issued in book form.
During this period of his career Mr. Carter was a frequent contributor to the technical press, and also carried on a small practice as consulting engineer.
On the closing of the School of Electrical Engineering in 1893, Mr. Carter joined the permanent staff of the Electrician, of which Mr. A. P. Trotter was then editor, and, on Mr. Trotter's retirement in 1895, he was appointed assistant-editor under Mr. W. G. Bond as editor.
In 1897 Mr. Carter went over to Montreal to attend the meeting of the British Association for the Electrician, and afterwards made a prolonged tour in Canada and the United States. Shortly after his return he succeeded Mr. Bond as editor-in-chief. Mr. Carter invented several things in connection with engineering, for some of which he took out patents; he also, in the intervals of his professional duties, indulged himself in the writing of fiction, several of his shorter stories being published in magazines, and one, at least, in book form; he was also very fond of music.
Mr. Carter had never a strong constitution, and in the winter of 1899, after a severe attack of pleurisy and bronchitis, following after influenza, had to leave his work and make a two months' tour to the Mediterranean and Egypt; this set him up again temporarily, but unfortunately the improvement in his health was not permanent. Last October it was found that his lungs were badly affected, and he went to a sanatorium to follow the "open-air cure." Unfortunately the insidious disease had taken too great a hold on his never strong constitution, and he succumbed to it on April 16th, aged 37 years, at Clevedon in Somerset, where he was devotedly nursed by his wife, having left the sanatorium when it was seen that the treatment was not benefiting him. Mr. Carter's loss will be deeply felt by his friends, for he had a most lovable nature, as well as by his widow and three sons.
Mr. Carter was elected an Associate of the Institution on the 23rd of February, 1888, and was transferred to the class of Members on the 23rd of May, 1895; he was also a member of the Societe des Ingenieurs Civils de France, a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, and of the Physical Society of London.
1903 Obituary.[2]