The eldest son of Susanna Pike and John Carter (born 1715), a successful and respected merchant, the young John Carter was baptised in the High Street Presbyterian (
Unitarian) Chapel in Portsmouth. His parents, rational
dissenters, refused to belong to the
Church of England and, like both of his grandfathers, were members of this chapel. In 1763, at 22, John Carter was elected an
alderman of the (then) corporation of the borough of Portsmouth and, at the same time, started to act as a magistrate. He was mayor for a few months in 1769, but, as he was a
Whig, the
Tories soon turned him out of office. He was knighted on 22 June 1773, whilst again occupying the office. His son John (1788–1838), a barrister and
Member of Parliament for Portsmouth, changed his name to
John Bonham-Carter to inherit property from a cousin, and his legitimate male-line descendants thus became the
Bonham-Carter family. ==References==