Cedric Oswald Carter (26 September 1917 – 12 March 1984) was a British medical geneticist and eugenicist. According to Peter Harper, Carter was "probably the single person who most influenced the development of medical genetics as a clinical specialty" during the late 1960s and 1970s.[1]
From 1948 to 1951, Carter was a research fellow at the Great Ormond Street Hospital (then known as the Hospital for Sick Children) in London, England. During the following four years, he was a part-time research fellow in genetics at the same hospital, as well as a part-time secretary for the Eugenics Society. He served as editor of the Eugenics Review from 1950 to 1952 and as secretary of the Eugenics Society from 1952 to 1957. He joined the Medical Research Council’s Clinical Genetics Unit at the Institute of Child Health, London as a staff member in 1957, and succeeded John Alexander Fraser Roberts as the Unit's director in 1964, remaining in this role until his retirement in 1982. He founded the Clinical Genetics Society in 1970 and served as its first president. He became professor of clinical genetics at the University of London in 1975, also holding this position until his retirement. He served as president of the Eugenics Society from 1972 to 1976.[2][3]
Carter married Peggy Hope, who had worked at St Thomas' Hospital as a nurse. The couple had seven children and twenty-nine grandchildren. Carter died "suddenly and unexpectedly" on 12 March 1984, at his home in Keston, Kent, England.[3]
