Maurice Carter RIP

Mike Crean in The Press reports:

Maurice Carter, who became a leading Christchurch builder, property developer, local government politician and philanthropist, died yesterday. He was 93.

The quiet, modest Carter has been described as “a city father” and his family as “a political dynasty”.

As founder and head of the Carter Group, he built hundreds of houses in the 1950s and 60s, many of them in Bryndwr and Burnside.

His ethic of hard work and perfectionism was so evident in his buildings that real estate firms still use the label “Maurice Carter home” as a recommendation in their advertising.

Carter was a city councillor from 1956 to 1989 and deputy mayor for the last six of those years. He was then a Canterbury regional councillor for six years, having sat also on the former Christchurch Drainage Board, Regional Planning Authority and Canterbury United Council.

Son Philip and grandson Tim have followed him on to the city council. Another son, David, is Minister of Agriculture.

Born in Bradford, Yorkshire, Carter did a carpentry apprenticeship before coming to New Zealand in 1938.

A lifetime of hard work saw him go from a carpentry apprenticeship to his own building empire. An inspirational story.