Carter, Cornelius (d. 1734), printer, was admitted to the Dublin printers’ guild in 1696 but was never sworn and, though listed until 1716, paid no quarterage. His press was housed at different addresses in Fishamble Street (1696–1727). He began his career as a pamphleteer and bootleg printer producing presswork that was shoddy and of an ephemeral nature, such as the final speeches of men about to be hanged, sermons, and pamphlets. In 1701 and 1702 he printed a funeral oration and two elegies on James II (qv) who had died on 5 September 1701. By 1702 he was doing business at Dick's Coffee House, Skinner Row, a tory haunt, and became ‘the party's earliest journalistic spokesman’ (Munter, History). At different times eleven or twelve newspapers were printed by him, the most successful being the Flying Post (1699–1724), the first newspaper to solicit advertisements and to offer subscription rates. On several occasions he was prosecuted (1704–27) and twice the result was his imprisonment and self-exile from Ireland (1715 and 1716); among the charges against him was printing an error-ridden New Testament (1698). Carter also sold ‘the fam'd royal eye water’. He died probably early in July 1734, for he was buried on 5 July. He had at least four sons and five daughters, none of whom followed him into his trade.
Sources
E. R. McC. Dix, ‘Cornelius Carter, printer’, IBL, xvii (1929), 84–5; Robert Munter, The history of the Irish newspaper (1967), esp. 50–52, 54; Robert Munter, A dictionary of the print trade in Ireland, 1550–1775 (1988), 50–51; M. Pollard, A dictionary of members of the Dublin book trade, 1550–1800 (2000), 92–3