Wilfred George Carter was born on 9 March 1889 in Bedford, Bedfordshire, the son of George Alfred Carter and Bertha Ellen Carter (née Odell). He was educated at Bedford School until 1906, when he took an apprenticeship with W.H. Allen, Son and Co. Ltd., Bedford, who manufactured steam and oil engines, turbines and centrifugal pumps, while continuing his education with private tuition in mathematics, mechanics, physics and theory of structures.

Following his apprenticeship, Carter became an engineering draughtsman with Commercial Cars Ltd of Luton in 1911, followed by being appointed leading draughtsman and deputy chief engineer with the Lacre Motor Car Co., Ltd, of Letchworth in 1913.

Carter began his aviation career when he was appointed Chief Draughtsman and Technical Engineer at the The Sopwith Aviation Company Ltd, Kingston, in 1916. There he supervised the team responsible for producing production drawings based on schemes produced by Herbert Smith and R.J. Ashfield. Following the end of WWI, and with Ashfield having left the company, Carter was responsible for converting the B.1 Bomber into Sopwith's contender for the trans-Atlantic prize, the Atlantic. The aircraft, flown by Harry Hawker and Lieutenant-Commander K. MacKenzie-Grieve, took off from Newfoundland on 18 May 1919 but unfortunately was forced to ditch in the Atlantic the next day, luckily without injury. His next design for Sopwith was their entrant for the 1919 Schneider Trophy race. Despite being the fastest British aircraft in that year's race, bad weather forced Harry Hawker to pull out of what was something of a fiasco.

With the dissolution of Sopwith and its rebirth as the H G Hawker Engineering Company Ltd in 1920, Carter continued in the same capacity with the new company. In 1921 Chief Designer Herbert Smith left for Japan and Captain B Thompson took his place, starting with the very unsuccessful Duiker. His Woodcock also suffered from flutter and serious control deficiencies. Carter replaced Thompson in early 1924 and created the Woodcock II which entered RAF service in 1925. In 1925 Carter left Hawker following a disagreement with Fred Sigrist, Sydney Camm replacing him as Chief Designer.

For comparative trials with the Napier Lion powered contenders for the 1927 Schneider Trophy competition, the Air Ministry commissioned a Mercury powered seaplane from Short Brothers of Rochester. The project was supervised by Lt-Col. Whiston Alfred Bristow (b. 20 Jul 1878 - d. 24 March 1949) and he secured the services of Carter as designer toward the end of 1925. The result was the elegant Short-Bristow Crusader.

Carter remained a freelance designer for the next few years and was employed by de Havilland at Stag Lane, where he produced to D.H.77 monoplane fighter. In 1929 and 1930 he published several articles in Flight outlining concepts in high speed seaplanes. Following an agreement whereby de Havilland's military programs would be transferred to Gloster at Hucclecote for completion, the D.H.77 and unfinished D.H.72 were transferred, along with Carter. Carter ceased his freelance work and joined the Gloster Aircraft Company in 1931, under Henry Folland.

In spring of 1934, Hawker Aircraft took over the Gloster Company. Folland, worried that the new owners would favour Sydney Camm's designs over his own, eventually resigned in 1937 and was succeeded as Chief Designer by Carter. The first project under Carter's control was the Gloster F.9/37, a promising twin-engine fighter design that never entered production.

Sqn. Ldr. J. McC. Reynolds was the pre-war Ministry overseer at Glosters and a contemporary of Frank whittle at Cranwell, and he arranged a meeting between Whittle and Carter in 1939. Whittle was initially interested in Carter's unconventional twin-boom pusher fighter project to Specification F.18/37. Though this was unsuitable, in August 1939 Carter was asked by the Air Ministry to submit plans for a brand new aircraft to use Whittle's engine. He agreed to the project before seeing the engine for himself. While not impressed with the engine itself, when he saw it running he was convinced that it could develop into a suitable powerplant given what they had managed to achieve in the somewhat primitive conditions at Lutterworth.

The Gloster E.28/39 was designed primarily to prove the concept of turbojet powered flight, the Air Ministry however insisted that the design include provision for four guns and 2,000 rounds of ammunition even if these were not fitted in the prototype. The contract to build the E.28/39 was placed with Gloster on 3 February 1940. The aircraft was built in secret at the Regents garage, Cheltenham and first flew on 15 April 1941 at RAF Cranwell, becoming the first British and Allied jet aircraft.

In January 1940 Carter drew up a scheme for a fighter generally compling with F.18/37, but using mixed power units, probably the very first example of such a design. Known as the Gloster "Boosted Fighter", it featureda Rolls-Royce Griffon engine in the nose and a Whittle W1 engine aft of the cockpit.

Even before the E.28/39 flew, the Air Ministry encouraged Carter to design a practical jet fighter since the E.28/39 was not suitable because it was unlikely that an engine of at least 2,000 lbf thrust would be available in the near future. Carter therefore decided that the design would require two engines. The result was designated the F.9/40 which first flew on 5 March 1943 and would find worldwide fame as the Gloster Meteor. His later designs included the E.1/44 single seat fighter, only built in prototype form.

Carter was appointed a Comanion of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1947 and awarded the RAeS Silver Medal the same year. he was appointed Technical Director in 1948, succeeded as Chief Designer by Richard Walker. He remained on the board until 1954, when he went into semi-retirement as a technical consultant to the company.

Wilfred George Carter CBE FRAeS died on 27 February 1969.

1. Schneider Trophy Seaplanes and Flying Boats, Ralph Pegram (Fonthill, 2012)
2. Interceptor, James Goulding (Ian Allan, 1986)
3. Sopwith Aircraft 1912-1920, H.F. King (Putnam, 1980)
4. Gloster Aircraft since 1917, Derek N. James (Putnam, 1971)
5. de Havilland Aircraft Since 1909, A.J. Jackson (Putnam, 1978)
6. Wikipedia
7. ancestry.co.uk