Sir Charles Frederick Carter FBA (15 August 1919 – 27 June 2002) was an English academic known primarily for his role as the founding Vice-Chancellor of Lancaster University. Carter was born in Rugby to a father who was an electrical engineer and the developer of the Carter coefficient, and a mother who was an active member of the Society of Friends. He was educated at Rugby School and St John's College, Cambridge, where he read Mathematics and Economics and attained a First.