Documents relating to Herbert Ellis Carter

Champion Malingerer : A Remarkable Career of Deception.

The Manchester Evenings News draws attention to the latest feat of an individual whom it styles the champion malingerer and who has previously distinguished himself by his devious for securing maintenance from the public funds without the inconvenience of hard work. The individual in question, under the name of Charles Carter, has been for some little time in the sick ward of Bedford Workhouse. He was apparently deaf and dumb, and before his admission in a weak and destitute condition had been travelling about as a pedlar of small articles, the prices of which were indicated by a card which he showed.

He was supposed to have become deaf and dumb through a fall from the mast of a trawler on which he was employed at Milford Haven on the 21st October 1899. The curious feature of his case was that, having improved very much under the hospital treatment at Bedford Workhouse, on the 21st October, this year he recovered his speech and hearing – twelve months to the day after his supposed accident, as he explained to an astonished porter. Although the officials were surprised, his case was nevertheless believed to be genuine.

Attention was, however, called to the case in the Poor Law Officers Journal with the result that Mr Bloomfield, clerk to the Chorlton Guardians at Manchester, obtained from Bedford a photograph of the recovered deaf mute, and he then recognised him as Herbert Ellis Carter, a man who had some time since victimised the ratepayers of his own Union, as well as those of Halifax and Liverpool.

The Evening News gives the following account of the champion malingerer's career

Carter was born at Keadby, in the Thorne Union, on the borders of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, on 23rd April 1872. He did not begin life well, his father deserting him at birth. He was brought up by his grandfather, with whom he remained until his 17th year, then he went to Doncaster and Leeds, where he is said to have done some work. Anyhow he did some work a little later, for he was sent to gaol for theft. Some time after coming out of prison he enlisted in the 10th Lincolnshire Regiment, stationed at Aldershot. The army not being to his taste he simulated lunacy so well that he deceived an army surgeon, who certified that he was a lunatic, and sent him to Thorne Workhouse to spend the Christmas of 1894.

The officials at Thorne having known Carter from a baby, were aware that whatever else he ailed he was not a lunatic, so they discharged him the following day. Carter then worked for a joiner in Doncaster for a few months, but later, feeling in need of a change of air, he travelled about to race meetings. The turf not providing him with the means of earning and easy living, he entered the army again, his choice this time falling upon the Army Service Corps. Even this branch of the services did not suit him, and finding another army surgeon who was not as cute as he, and having the former discharge on the score of lunacy to back him, he again secured his discharge. From this stage, date his exploits upon officials of the Poor Law.

In December 1895, he became an inmate of the Halifax Workhouse. Here he carried to perfection the art of a malingerer. The hospital know him more than any other part of the workhouse, but the officials always suspected him, and after six month's stay they found out his real settlement, the Thorne Union, and bundled him off there. But the workhouse master at Thorne knew him better than anybody, and, of course, his stay in the workhouse there was one of the briefest.

Next he tackled the officials of Chorlton Union, Manchester.

On the 6th October 1896, giving himself the name of Lennox de Voy, and coming from a lodging house in Grosvenor Street, he sought admission to the Withington Workhouse. He was an acrobat, he said, and had injured his back by a fall from the trapeze at the London Royal Albert Music Hall. He was able to walk to the room of the relieving officer, but once having gained admission to the workhouse hospital he conveniently lost the power of motion. He was put to bed, and there he remained for many months – a most interesting patient. The tales he told the nurses won their hearts. They were delighted, too, with his artistic qualities. With a pen or pencil he could do anything, and many of the sketches which he drew are much prized even today. An effort was made to get him a box of paints and brushes in order that he might rise to even greater artistic heights, but the project failed. However, the sketches were sufficient to secure for him the photographs of some of the nurses. During all these months his foot never touched the floor. The doctors were quite deceived. And so he might have gone on, living in luxurious idleness for ever, but for a correspondence which passed between him and a nurse of the Halifax Workhouse Hospital, for whom he maintained a kindly regard. That correspondence came to the ears of the officials of the workhouse. The Halifax Guardians were communicated with, and there being clear evidence that whether Carter was a rogue or not his settlement was clearly the Thorne Union, and order for his removal there was duly made out. So completely, however, had the man deceived the medical staff at Withington that the doctor would only consent to his departure to Thorne providing he was taken in a lying-down position. The man is permanently disabled the official reports said. The day of his removal came, and with great regret, and after some expostulation, the nurses at Withington permitted him to go. A relieving officer, an assistant, and a nurse accompanied him to London Road Station. There the nurse left him, taking the precaution to give him his custodian brandy and port wine to keep up the invalid's strength on the journey. He was lifted into an ambulance, amidst the sympathetic expressions of the crowd, who gathered round, and was still alive at Doncaster, having as the train sped along, drunk all the brandy, and all the port wine with which the tender solicitude of the Chorlton staff had provided him.

The supply of alcohol being exhausted at Doncaster, and there being still some distance to travel, the relieving officer in charge procured some more brandy, and some nice new-laid eggs. These the prisoner consumed before Thorne was reached. There being no hackney carriage at Thorne Station, a spring lurry was procured, and on it Carter was tenderly placed. As he breathed his native air, however, and as he approached the Thorne Workhouse, his strength grew amazingly. He began to throw himself about on the lurry, and was so ungrateful as to attempt to hit the kindly relieving officer on the nose. Arriving at the workhouse he was met by the master and officials. Then the scene changed.

Oh! it's you is it?

said the master

Get up

and Carter reluctantly got up though his feet had not touched the floor for six months he was able with hardly any assistance to walk up the stairs to the workhouse; and after three days spent in regaining his strength he applied for his discharge, and gaily walked out into the world once again. His career for some time after this is bblank. But in March last year, an official of the Chorlton Union in conversation with a nurse of Brownhill Union Hospital, Liverpool, heard of an interesting invalid who had been an inmate of that institution for some months. This man, though only about 25, had lost the use of his lower limbs. He lay in bed always. But he was a most interesting conversationalist, and drew the loveliest sketches.

What's his name? was asked,

Lennox Alphonsi was the reply.

What was he?

An acrobat who was injured while performing in Paris came the answer.

The very man said the Chorlton official, and he proved to be correct

A visit paid to the ward the following day showed that the interesting invalid was indeed Herbert Ellis Carter, who had succeeded in playing upon the Liverpool Guardians the trick which had proved successful in the case of Chorlton Guardians. The Chorlton officials, evidently entertain a lively remembrance of Mr Carter and now, it would appear, they have again exposed his tricks.

The strange thing about the whole story is that no punishment seems hitherto to have overtaken this arch-deceiver.

Almost the same report appeared in the Derry Journal on 23rd November 1900 except that they said it was the Master of the Halifax Workhouse who said the words

Oh! it's you is it? Get up

It also said that such a genius is bound to turn up again somewhere.

But who, after all this, shall say that doctors cannot be deceived