Carter was born in
Stamford, Lincolnshire in 1887. Her parents were Edith Cecilia Carter (née Beaumont) and Thomas Edward Carter, a
general practitioner. She had a younger brother and a sister. She was educated in private schools in England and Brussels, Belgium before attending the
North London Collegiate School. From 1917 to 1918, she studied social sciences at the
University of Bristol. She made sociology her specialist subject when she studied economics at the
London School of Economics from 1918 to 1922, graduating with a BSc (Econ). She then studied midwifery and at the end of 1923 went to work as a midwife and health visitor for the
City of Westminster Health Society. In 1925, she trained in nursing at London's
King's College Hospital, and in 1928 became a
state registered nurse. In 1934, she became the Organising Secretary of the
Royal College of Midwives, then called the Midwife's Institute. She was the Education Officer and revised and published ''The Midwife's Dictionary and Encyclopaedia'' in 1934 and again in 1939. In 1938, she published
A New Deal for Nurses. She wrote about the effect of rigid hierarchies and outdated discipline which encouraged bullying and created barriers to progress and recruitment of nurses. She wrote about the ceremonies and forms created by
matrons and ward sisters that created mental health issues for their subordinates. Carter began work with the
University of Edinburgh in 1953. She had been teaching at the
University of Toronto but returned to do research funded by the
Boots company. She was the first nurse to receive a research grant and her work was supported by the Scottish branch of the
Royal College of Nursing and the University of Edinburgh. From 1952, she reviewed the existing course for tutors of nursing in Edinburgh and compared it with three alternative courses in England. In 1956, the University opened the first department of
nursing in Europe for academic study. The new course was two years long and all students were required to meet the entrance requirements of the University. The course and department were inspired by Carter's work, a University working party and a 1955 grant from the
Rockefeller Foundation. Carter joined the University of
Edinburgh's Medical faculty. ==Death and legacy==