Sir George Carteret, Baronet, was born in the Island of Jersey in 1599, his father, Helier Carteret, being then Deputy Governor of that Island. He entered the Navy at an early age. In 1626 was appointed joint Governor of Jersey; in 1640 Comptroller of all his Majesty's ships, and in May, 1645, was created a Baronet. He retired, however, on the commencement of the civil war, from the Navy, and withdrew, with his family, to Jersey, which he afterwards bravely defended against the Parliamentarians. Here he had the honor to receive and to entertain the Prince of Wales, afterwards Charles II., and his followers. After the fall of the Monarchy, he followed his Royal Master to France in 1652, where he was thrown into the Bastile in 1657, on a charge presented by Cromwell's Ambassador, and afterwards banished France. He joined the King in 1659 at Brussels, and at the Restoration rode with his Majesty on his entry into London in 1660, when he was appointed Vice-Chamberlain, sworn of the Privy Council and constituted Treasurer of the Navy.

Sir George Carteret turned his attention, at an early date, to the Colonization of America, and in 1650 fitted out a ship for Virginia with many passengers, all sort of goods and tools for husbandry, in order to plant an island of which he had obtained a grant. Though the project is supposed not to have been fully carried out, on account of the civil war, he did not lose sight of it altogether, and eventually put it into execution in 1665, when he and his associates found the Colony, called New Jersey in his honor. He was next elected to represent Portsmouth. In 1668 he was appointed one of the Board of Trade, and in 1669 was expelled the House of Commons on a charge of embezzlement. In 1673 he was appointed one of the Lords of the Admiralty, and continued in the public service until the 14th January, 1679, when he died at Whitehall. His remains were interred at Hawnes, in the county of Bedford.