Born at Castlerock, Co Derry on 26 July 1887, the son of William McCarter JP, he was educated at schools in northern Ireland and entered Trinity College, Dublin in 1906. He was senior moderator (first in the first class) in natural sciences and won the gold medal at the BA degree examination in 1910, served as demonstrator of anatomy 1910-11, and after qualifying in 1912 was appointed house surgeon at Macclesfield Infirmary in 1913 and York County Hospital in 1914. He won the Military Cross during the first world war, when he served as a Major in the RAMC, and soon after its end he took the Fellowship. From 1922 to 1923 he was throat surgeon to the LCC school clinic in Garratt Lane, and in 1925 he was medical officer to the Royal Victoria Patriotic School for Girls at Wandsworth. Later he practised in the Portsmouth area, first at Southsea and then at Havant where he died on 19 April 1954. He married Beatrice, daughter of H G Sherlock.