Henry S. Salt (1851-1939)

Henry S. Salt was a classical scholar, animal rights campaigner, and founder of The Humanitarian League. Mahatma Gandhi credited Salt with showing him why ‘it was right to be vegetarian’, and Salt counted among his close friends George Bernard Shaw, Edward Carpenter, and James Ramsay MacDonald. Defining himself as a rationalist, Salt proposed a humanist ‘creed of kinship’, predicated on the ultimate duty of humankind to protect the vulnerable and care for one another.

Salt died in Brighton on 19 April 1939 at the age of 87, and was survived by his second wife Catherine (née Mandeville), who he had married in 1927.

Henry S. Salt’s deep concern for humanity, belief in kinship, emphasis on free and rational thought, and creed of kindness place him squarely amongst the influential humanists of history. In his advocacy for humane reforms, and tireless work towards them, his was an activist humanism, which viewed organised religion as in many ways a barrier to equality and social change.

The obituary reproduced below was originally printed in the Literary Guide, June 1939.

A GREAT Victorian is dead, and we have lost a venerable friend and an ardent champion of our Cause. Of his humanitarian work and devotion to all that is associated with the good of mankind and “our cousins,” as he called animals, readers of the Literary Guide are well aware. As showing how strongly he felt on these subjects, I quote the following from one of the many letters he addressed to me: “It does not greatly matter whether we look on humanitarian principles as practised for the sake of one’s self or of the sufferers. It really amounts to the same thing if we believe in the unity of life. Most persons seem to like to talk of working for others, etc.; but personally I have always preferred to think that what animates reformers is the wish to make this world, both for themselves and others, a less unpleasant place to live in. While others are oppressed we are oppressed. In benefiting others we benefit ourselves, and vice versa. For myself, much as I detest all orthodox religion, I would rather associate with a humane religionist than with a Rationalist of the brutalitarian type.”

And again: “There is no possibility of my writing that article for the Literary Guide , but I hope you will do it. It seems to me that the Society, as it needs some positive programme, might very well take up a sympathetic attitude towards what we call ‘Animals’ Rights,’ though the word ‘rights’ need not be insisted on. Science having exploded the old anthropocentric delusion that the ‘beasts’ were created for man’s use, Rationalists ought surely to regard them as fellow beings.”

Henry, who was a son of Col. T. H. Salt of the Bengal Artillery, was born in India. In 1866 he went to Eton, and from there to King’s College, Cambridge, returning to the school as a master in 1875. The Socialistic and vegetarian beliefs held by the young teacher were assessed at Eton as damnable heresies. “A vegetarian was of course regarded as a sheer lunatic,” and a medical friend, indicating the “impossibility” of such a régime, said: “ Well, I give you two years.” The two years became fifty-eight.

Eton, “where ignorance is bliss,” where the hunting and breaking-up of hares shocked the humanitarian (as late as 1868 the boys were permitted to pursue a mutilated fox deprived of one of his pads), and where the majority were inflexibly bent on other activities than those of the mind and toleration of new ideas was taboo, inevitably disillusioned the young master. It is not surprising to read that he took farewell of Dr. Warre, the “head,” who kindly expressed his regret that his subordinate had lost faith in the public-school system. “’Tis the vegetarianism,” he gravely remarked —an assertion which must have severely taxed the gravity of his hearer.

In the two obituary notices of our friend which I have seen no mention was made of his Seventy Years Among Savages, the humour and kindly satire of which make it delightful reading. The ambiguous title recalls the story of the agriculturist who, having purchased a work entitled An Essay on Bacon, was chagrined to find therein no mention of pigs. The “savages” are in fact ourselves, and it was said that several schoolmasters, taking the book to be a story of adventure, presented it as a prize. The author, when writing to me, remarked: “I am gratified to know that you like the Seventy Years. It is being very well noticed in the Press, but reviewers naturally give the slip, when they can, to any ethical significance that it may possess and set me down as a genial sort of crank.”

Among the many other works published during Mr. Salt’s long life were The Story of My Cousins, Animals’ Rights, Shelley: Poet and Pioneer, The Logic of Vegetarianism, which appealed strongly to Mr. Gandhi, and biographies of Richard Jefferies, De Quincey, Shelley, James Thomson, and Thoreau. He also edited in 1895, with Frank Sanborn, an attractive edition of Thoreau’s poems, which deserves to be more widely known.

I look back to many pleasant meetings with Henry Salt, particularly to a ramble on the Sussex downs some fifteen years ago. We spent the day watching birds and botanizing. His proficiency in the latter pursuit led me jokingly to address him, in the style of Venator to Piscator (Izaak Walton): “Henceforward allow me to call you Master, and that really I may be your scholar.” It was a long and happy day, and when in the evening we arrived at Lewes Station my companion, referring to the many miles we had covered without fatigue, said exultingly: “See what we old vegetarians can do.”

Mr. Salt had many literary friends, including Meredith, Ruskin, Swinburne, Hardy, W. H. Hudson, and George Bernard Shaw. His association with the latter existed unimpaired for many years, and the collection of letters which he had received from his old friend was sold a few years ago, at the kindly suggestion of Mr. Shaw, for his benefit. The purchaser was the well-known American dealer, Mr. Gabriel Wells. In commemoration of this transaction Mr. Salt named his house at Brighton “The Shaw,” and christened a pet cat “George.” In 1927 he married, en secondes voces, a Brighton lady named Catharine Mandeville, whose devotion and amiable temper lightened and brightened his remaining years.

It is pleasant to think that one of the most lovable men I have known in a long life was a Rationalist; one of whom it may aptly be said that, like the kindly old Squire of Mr. Chromatic’s song in Peacock’s Headlong Hall:—

Mrs. Salt, whose devotion throughout her husband’s long illness has been marvellous, will have the warmest sympathy of a host of friends.

Edgar Syers.