Archibald Carter
Elite British officials devised the Round Table Conference and famous politicians drove its politics. Its functioning, however, was down to the coordinating efforts of (Richard Henry) Archibald Carter (1887-1958), the conference Secretary-General. Carter in many ways was a typical civil servant. Educated at Eton and Trinity College, Cambridge, his work at the India Office in London earned him the Secretary-Generalship. He oversaw the minutiae of the meetings, from document circulation to expenses and lodgings. What makes Carter unusual is his relative lack of archival trace. No private papers or memoir survives, although his initials appear on countless documents and in many notes of thanks, including one from the Secretary of State for India, who wrote to Carter on 27th January 1931 on behalf of the Prime Minster, praising his tireless energy in doing the ‘…heavywork behind the scenes’.
Many visiting delegates to the Round Table Conference took advantage of the opportunity to have official photographic portraits made. Bassano Limited, who branded themselves as photographers to the royals and social elites, produced these images of Carter in 1936, a year after he was appointed Knight Commander of the Indian Empire in reward for his efforts at the conference. Even in these official portraits, he seems to shrink from the camera.
After the Round Table Conference, Carter served in the India Office before being appointed Permanent Secretary of the Admiralty between 1936-40. As the senior most civil servant responsible for the Royal Navy, Carter answered directly to the First Lord of the Admiralty, who from 3rd September 1939 was Winston Churchill. Sitting to Churchill’s left here, Carter almost manages to avoid the lens entirely.