John Carter - An Extraordinary Artist
John Carter was born in Coggeshall on 31st July 1815 his parents, we are told, were poor but honest; his father was an agricultural labourer working for Richard White on Highfields farm. In due time he attended a dame school in Church Street and then, at nine, the National School on Back Lane and finally in 1828, Hitcham's School on West Street.
Although he possessed it was said, of a more lively mind than most, his intelligence expressed itself in mischief rather than in academic distinction. He did however show an unusual ability in drawing;
‘It was when I went to school that I first remember having an inclination for drawing. Whenever I had a pen or pencil in my hand I was sure to be drawing in my books or on my slate and at home about the walls of the house..’
On leaving school in 1830 he was sent to work in the silk trade at Charles Beckwith’s factory in Back Lane. After assisting a weaver for some time he was put to the loom and ‘learnt to weave in the figured branch’ earning a decent wage of twelve shillings or more a week. In 1835 he married and began to work as a silk weaver on his own account. He also made merry; ‘following the example of my friends I was frequently at the public house and soon took delight in all wit and mischief’. He chose his own friends of course, young men impatient of restraint, who saw little merit in spending a quiet evening at home. In his memoir the Rev Dampier wrote;‘He was accustomed to spend much of his earnings and most of his time, at the public house – a certain sign of a depraved condition. He neglected the religious observance of the Lord's day, often wandering about the fields with evil companions, instead of going to church.’ Dampier was a distinguished and austere Vicar of Coggeshall who promoted an account of Carter's story as one of impiety punished, as he put it; ‘It pleased God in his wisdom and love…to cast him down.’ Without Carter's 'depravity' his punishment would have been unjust and that was unthinkable.
So we come to the events of a Saturday evening in May 1836. After a night of drinking in an ale-house John Carter and seven or eight young men decided that it would be a good idea, the moon being near full, to go rooking; robbing rook’s nests of the young birds (It is reported that rook pie was as good, if not better, than pigeon pie). They visited a rookery at Holfield Grange and were thus employed until about one in the morning. John Carter was forty feet from the ground when he attempted to jump across to another tree but missed his hold and fell, crashing through the branches, to land heavily on his back, his head bent forwards on the front of his chest. As his appalled friends gathered round they discovered that he was alive and trying to say something - 'pull - me - out'. Two of them grasped hold of his feet while another agonisingly pulled his head back into position; his breathing then became a little easier but he lapsed into unconsciousness and could not be roused. His ‘miserable and affrighted companions’ carried him home on a hurdle to his distraught wife. Doctor Whitmore was summoned at 4.30 on Sunday morning to find Carter 'perfectly insensible and motionless, cold and with a pulse weak in the extreme'. Although Whitmore did not expect him to survive; 'scarcely any hope of recovery', over the next two days Carter slowly came to his senses and then it became apparent that he was paralysed with no movement below his neck. The continued expectation of death proved unduly pessimistic and as the days passed life prevailed. But the paralysis remained, he could move his neck and had slight movement to his chest and left shoulder but that was all. As fears of his imminent death abated Carter was confronted with the daunting prospect of a life unimaginably curtailed. He was racked with shame and vexation for the turn of events and filled with the deepest dispair as he tried to make sense of what had happened to him. In reviewing his former life he turned increasingly to the church where he sought and found spiritual sustenance. Carter came to see his disablement as deserved; as Dampier put it ‘The chastisement of the heavenly father weaned him from sin’. In any event his spiritual journey to acceptance was directed by his developing religious beliefs and seems to have brought him solace and calm.
In Coggeshall there was an outpouring of sympathy, help was freely given and a stream of visitors amused and entertained him as well as providing ‘instruction and consolation for the spirit’. The parish granted him a small allowance on which he and his wife were able to subsist. Six weeks after the fall, they returned to his parent’s house largely for the sake of economy but also that his friends might more easily attend him. Carter became very fond of reading; especially biography, and about a year after the accident he came across a memoir. He recalled; ‘I used to borrow books from my neighbours and others. My wife one day brought home a tract which gave an account of a young woman in some asylum in Liverpool, who had lost the use of her limbs and used to amuse herself by drawing with her mouth. Carter was immediately enthused by the idea ‘and would not be satisfied till he made the attempt'. The 'Tract' was actually a memoir by Elizabeth Kenning a thirty-five year old reformed thief, prostitute and drug addict who lived in the Liverpool Penitentiary, a home for penitent fallen women. She had propositioned a minister but deeply touched by what he said, began to attend his church. Her paralysis developed whilst she was at the penitentiary where her character and fortitude impressed all who met her. Her book 'Memoir of Elizabeth Kenning' was published in 1829, the year that she died.So John Carter began to draw, sometimes on a slate and sometimes on pieces of paper pinned to a pillow, working with a pencil and with a watercolour brush. His first very crude effort was of a Peacock butterfly, ‘a sixpenny box of paints was sent for and the drawing made forthwith’. His early work could be described as admirable rather than accomplished but as time passed his skill grew and his later works are extraordinary and very beautiful. After several experiments he settled on a technique which involved drawing with pencil and then applying a delicate ink wash with a very fine brush producing work which had the appearance of an engraving.
A portrait of Mrs Bramston nee Hanbury,
by John Carter, pencil & ink, 14 x 13cm
Carter was encouraged in his efforts by Miss Anna Hanbury (later Mrs Bramston) the daughter of Osgood Hanbury the Squire of Holfield Grange. She was a frequent visitor, often sitting at his bedside as he drew his 'wonderful drawings'. She brought him books and did everything she could to alleviate his suffering and it was she who began to sell his drawings to her friends at a shilling each.
The Rev Dampier described the process‘The posture in which he drew was lying a little on the side, with the head raised by pillows. A small light desk of deal made under his own directions was adjusted for him and a paper attached with large brass-headed pins. He first sketched his subject with a lead pencil, sometimes as little as four inches in length, which he held between his teeth. This done, a little saucer of Indian ink was prepared and the brush moistened by his attendant and placed in his mouth which by the motion of his head produced the most accurate and delicate strokes, the precision of his drawing was perfectly marvellous. He was accustomed to use very fine brushes, some almost as fine as needlepoints, the brush taken from his mouth, replenished and returned by the attendant. Each picture took a great deal of effort as he had to stop frequently to rest.’
In reproduction, John Carter’s work is coarsened and diminished, before photography, copies could only be made by engravers or lithographers and the delicacy of the best work is difficult to mimic and this is true even when photo-lithography came along. When writing the second edition of his memoir, Dampier had some of Carter's drawings returned by the engravers explaining that their efforts, 'are, due to the extreme delicacy, a failure and we fear we shall not make a satisfactory job of them.' The difference between original and reproduction is very clear in the illustrations below. Most of his work, now widely dispersed and probably unrecognised, is of course only known from nineteenth century reproductions.
Pinholes at the top when the paper was attached to the stand. Original, Ink and brush, 20 x 22cms
Lucy, Carter’s wife had long suffered from a disease of the heart and in November 1841 she died. Hannah Carter, his sister, then took on the care of her brother and became his constant attendant.
Carter’s circumstances and his work slowly came to public attention and he became an object of interest to surgeons, the religious, artists and others who visited him at his cottage in Coggeshall. George Richmond, a noted artist, visited and in a letter to the Rev Dampier; ‘I wish I had made a sketch of his own (as it appeared to me) most beautiful face… but to see him with his short pencil between his lips, executing with the greatest precision and skill, intricate forms, and describing difficult curves, filled me with wonder and admiration.’
John Carter was a likable young man and visitors were deeply touched by his fate and his apparent acceptance of his lot. Dampier tells us that he was ‘obliging to all and thankful to all and ready to undertake any work that was required of him.’ Local people with charitable intent or attracted by his increasing fame began to bring in paintings or engravings for him to copy; ‘Some would bring dogs, some cats, some foxes and some pieces less pleasing to a pure and refined taste; and all these in turn he would execute with the greatest care.’
Engraving and Ink wash, approx 12 x 13cms
Commissioned from Carter by Walter Gardner. Indian ink on heavy paper.
Regarded by many as Carter’s finest work is a drawing entitled ‘Ratcatcher and his Dogs’ commissioned by John Mills in 1849. Edwin Landseer described it as; ‘the finest specimen of animal drawing he had ever seen’ and Queen Victoria herself acquired a copy. The original work went with Frederick Mills to Boston in America but a print is included in the Rev Dampier's 1875 Memoir. Carter's own favourite was a work called 'Innocence' also in the possession of Frederick Mills and for which he gave £50. Dampier thought the shading of the work too subtle for it to be copied with any justice and I am not aware that any print has ever been made of it. The Queen Dowager (the Widow of William IV) also had one of Carter's drawings and he intended to produce a piece fully worthy of his talents for the Great Exhibition of 1851. But it was not to be.
Carter travelled around Coggeshall in a little carriage devised so that the couch on which he lay could be quickly attached and removed from the wheels. The Chelmsford Chronicle recalled;
‘Persons passing through Coggeshall may possibly remember having met a man enveloped in sheets and wrappers, lying on a coach-chair, and drawn by two boys. That was Carter, the artist.’
It was this contrivance, which led to his death in 1850. A young boy who was often engaged for that purpose was drawing him about on 21st May of that year. On guiding the carriage down a slight descent the boy tripped and fell, the carriage tipped over and Carter was thrown out. He was much shaken and bruised but seemed to recover briefly but on Sunday 2nd June at nine in the evening he died ‘very calm and peaceful’ with a prayer on his lips. He was thirty-five years old.
'A SINGULAR ESSEX ARTISTS DEATH. - Our obituary this week records the death of John Carter, a self-taught artist of extraordinary and unique genius, residing in Coggeshall. As the majority of our readers may be unacquainted with the little history of "this village wonder", we subjoin a few particulars of this unobtrusive yet constantly-employed life....'
So begins an article in the Essex County Standard on Friday 7th June 1850 which was reprinted in newspapers across the country and in Ireland.
Later in 1850 the Rev Dampier published a Memoir, a copy of which was presented to Queen Victoria who sent a £5 'for the use of Mr Carter's parents and sister'. John Carter’s fame had spread to America and in 1863 Frederick Mills wrote a book ‘The Life of John Carter’ published in New York. Frederick was the owner of the ‘Ratcatcher and his Dogs’ which his brother had commissioned as a present to him. After the first edition had sold out, in 1875 Dampier brought out an enlarged edition of his memoir.
Surgeons examining Carter's corpse post mortem discovered that the spinal column had been constricted at the fifth, sixth and seventh vertebrae but not severed. Carter's backbone was sectioned and displayed in the College of Surgeons Museum No 978 A.
John Carter's grave was unmarked but half a century later its location was still remembered as the then vicar, the much loved Rev Patch, suggested that a cross should be placed at the head of the grave and Watts of Colchester were instructed to make it. Various amounts were subscribed and others sought 'from other old inhabitants of the town who value the memory of so interestings and so good a man'. The location of the grave is at present (2024) unknown.
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Sources
Dampier, William James, A Memoir of John Carter,
John W Parker London 1850
Dampier, William James, A Memoir of John Carter, A New Edittion,
Simkin Marshall & Co., London 1875
Mills, Frederick James, The Life of John Carter,
Hurd & Houghton, New York 1868.
Available online - click on the 'Links' tab above and select 'John Carter 1868'
Parish Magazine Decemnber 1891
Elizabeth Kenning; There is also a link to an account of her life in the 'Links' section.
Chelmsford Chronicle; 07 & 14/06/1850
Essex Standard; 07/06/1850
Blackburn Standard; 26/06/1850
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T Disley 2018
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Comments
By Veronica cowlin: Learning so much about Coggeshall, that I have never heard about. Fascinating website. So informative and interesting.. By Patricia Miller: Very interesting By Jeremy Luff: Absolutely brilliant. Fantastic story. Thanks for sharing. Only moved to Coggeshall a couple of years ago and like to hear stories of the village...town! By Jane Jefferies: Thank-you for that, Trevor. Absolutely riveting. By Chris Endersby: Really interesting. Thanks By Stephen Salliss: My grandmother gave me her copy of The Life Of John Carter. It contains all the illustrations shown here and more. By Mary Challenget: Is there a list of all his paintings?