A Catholic convert who translated Italian writing and promoted the Italian democratic cause.
Born California, but brought up in England and studied in France. From : "... she interviewed Luigi Sturzo on behalf of the Daily Herald. This was the beginning of what was to be a lasting collaboration. Acting at first as his interpreter, she became his regular translator and was brought into ever closer contact with Christian Democracy in its international manifestations."
Sturzo was a guest of Carter and Cicely M. Marshall, 1926-33, while in London, exiled from Italy.
Read her story in her own words at .
Source: .
Our colleague, Andrew Behan, states that she was born on 19 December 1900 in Santa Barbara, California, USA, and her full name was Dorothy Barbara Barclay Carter. She was the only child of John Alexander Carter (b.1860) and Lucia Rebecca Carter née Barclay (1867-1913). In 1901 she was baptised in the Episcopalian Church in Montecito, Santa Barbara, California.
She came to England in 1902 and in the 1911 census she is shown as aged 10 years and an American citizen, living in a 4 roomed property at 1 Evelyn Mansions, Kew Road, Richmond, Surrey, with her widowed mother and a female general domestic servant. Her mother described herself a beauty specialist who had been born in Jerusalem, Palestine but who was British by parentage.
From July 1920 to June 1921 she was a typist at the International Labour Office in Geneva, Switzerland and from October to December 1921 she was working for Dáil Éireann's Irish Legation in Rome, Italy. She then went to France and in May 1922 she was residing at 31 rue de Tauron, Paris whilst attending the Sorbonne University.
Electoral registers from 1930 to 1934 show her listed as Dorothy Barbara Barclay Carter at 213b Gloucester Terrace, London, W2, with Edith Jones and Cicely Mary Marshall (1871-1955). From 1935 the electoral registers list her as Barbara Barclay Carter at 32 Chepstow Villas, London, W11, with Edith Jones, Cicely Mary Marshall and Valentine Watts. From 1937 Edith Jones was no longer listed. The 1939 England and Wales Register confirmed her date of birth and she is shown as Dorothy B. B. Carter, a journalist and author, still residing at 32 Chepstow Villas with: Cicely M. Marshall, a person of private means and Hilda Clausen (b.1891), a widowed working housekeeper.
Probate records list her as Dorothy Barbara Barclay Carter otherwise Barbara Barclay Carter, confirming that her address was 32 Chepstow Villas and that she died, aged 50 years, on 4 September 1951 at Bordighera, Italy. Administration, with a will, was granted to Cicely Mary Marshall, a spinster, on 31 May 1952 and her effects totalled £96-5s-0d.
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