10 Facts About Theophilus Carter

Theophilus Carter was an eccentric British furniture dealer who may have been an inspiration for the illustration by Sir John Tenniel of Lewis Carroll's characters the Mad Hatter in his 1865 novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Hatta in the 1871 sequel Through the Looking-Glass.

Some writers claim that Theophilus Carter was a servitor at Christ Church, one of the University of Oxford's colleges during the 1850s and 1860s, at the same time that Lewis Carroll was there.

However, while an alarm clock bed was indeed displayed at the Exhibition – in fact two were – Theophilus Carter's name is lacking in both the Exhibition's catalogue and any other known documentation.

Census records for 1881 show that Theophilus Carter lived above this shop with his wife, Mary Anne Theophilus Carter, daughter, grand-daughter and two servants.

In 1846 Theophilus Carter married Mary Ann Clarkson, two years his senior, and had the following children:.

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Greene, thinks that Theophilus Carter was unaware that he figured in "Through the Looking Glass" [sic] But all Oxford called him "The Mad Hatter, " and surely his friends, or enemies, must have chaffed him about it.

Theophilus Carter would stand at the door of his furniture shop in the High, sometimes in an apron, always with a top-hat at the back of his head, which, with a well-developed nose and a somewhat receding chin, made him an easy target for the caricaturist.

All three witnesses agreed that Theophilus Carter looked like Tenniel's Mad Hatter, and according to Baillie the resemblance was widely noticed, but the explanation of this resemblance is clearly based on hearsay.

Theophilus Carter died in 1904 and was buried in Oxford's Holywell Cemetery.

Theophilus Carter was buried with his granddaughter, Bertha Mary, aged 1 year.