Person    | Female  Born 19/12/1900  Died 4/9/1951

Barbara Barclay Carter

Categories: Friend / family, Literature

Countries: France, Italy, Switzerland, USA

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 TerraNouvelle: "... 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 Catholic Authors.

Source: TerraNouvelle.

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.

Comments are provided by Facebook, please ensure you are signed in here to see them

This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Barbara Barclay Carter

Commemorated ati

Don Luigi Sturzo

Don Luigi Sturzo, 1871 - 1959, Italian political leader, lived here in exile ...

Read More

Other Subjects

Agatha Christie

Agatha Christie

Detective novelist and playwright.  Born in Torquay, into a well-off family, where a bust has been erected, as Agatha Miller.  Married Archie Christie in 1914.  In WW1 she trained and worked in a p...

Person, Cinema, Literature, Seriously Famous, TV & Radio

5 memorials
James Hadley Chase

James Hadley Chase

Thriller writer. Born at the site of the plaque as René Lodge Brabazon Raymond. Under various pseudonyms, he wrote ninety novels, fifty of which were made into films. Died in Corseaux-sur-Vevey, Sw...

Person, Literature, Switzerland

1 memorial
Jean Rhys

Jean Rhys

Writer. Born Ella Gwendoline Rees Williams in Hillsborough Street, Roseau, Dominica. She moved to England in 1910 and studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. After marrying in 1919, she moved...

Person, Literature, Caribbean Islands, France

1 memorial
George Eliot

George Eliot

Novelist.  Born Chilvers Coton, Warwickshire.  Pen name of Mary Ann (or Marian) Evans. Spent her first 21 years on a farm, now (2015) the Griff House Beefeater Grill restaurant on the Coventry Road...

Person, Literature, Seriously Famous

3 memorials
Winifred Darch

Winifred Darch

Author and teacher. Born in Brighton. A prolific writer of novels, mainly for girls. From 1906 to 1935, she worked as a teacher and housemistress at the High School for Girls, Loughton. We cannot f...

Person, Education, Literature

1 memorial