Henry Stephens Salt

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Henry Stephens Salt (20 September 1851–19 April 1939) was an English writer and campaigner for social reform in the fields of prisons, schools, economic institutions, and the treatment of animals. He was a noted ethical vegetarian,^[1] anti-vivisectionist^[2],socialist^[3] and pacifist, and was well known as a literary critic, biographer, classical scholar and naturalist. It was Salt who first introduced Mahatma Gandhi to the influential works of Henry David Thoreau.

Salt is credited with being the first writer to argue explicitly that animals ought to have rights, as opposed to better treatment,^[4] writing in 1894 that, "If we are ever going to do justice to the lower races, we must get rid of the antiquated notion of a 'great gulf' fixed between them and mankind, and must recognize the common bond of humanity that unites all living beings in one universal brotherhood."^[5]

Early life

The son of a British army colonel, Salt was born in India in 1851 but returned with his family to England in 1852, while still an infant. He studied at Eton College, then graduated from Cambridge University in 1875.

Career

Teaching

After Cambridge, Salt returned to Eton as an assistant schoolmaster to teach classics. Four years later, in 1879, he married Catherine (Kate) Joynes, the daughter of a fellow master at Eton. He remained at Eton until 1884, when, inspired by classic ideals and disgusted by his fellow masters' meat-eating habits and reliance on servants, he and Kate moved to a small cottage at Tilford, Surrey where they grew their own vegetables and lived very simply, sustained by a small pension Salt had built up. Salt engrossed himself in writing and began work on the pioneering Humanitarian League.

Writing and influence

During his lifetime Salt wrote almost 40 books.^[6] His first, A Plea for Vegetarianism, was published by the Vegetarian Society in 1886 and in 1890, he produced an acclaimed biography of philosopher Henry David Thoreau, two interests that later led to a friendship with Mahatma Gandhi. He also wrote about the need for nature conservation to protect the natural beauty of the British countryside from commercial vandalism.^[7]

His circle of friends included many notable figures from late 19th and early 20th century literary and political life, including writers Algernon Swinburne, John Galsworthy, Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling, Havelock Ellis, Count Leo Tolstoy,William Morris, Peter Kropotkin,Ouida, George Bernard Shaw and Robert Cunninghame-Graham, Labour leader James Keir Hardie and Fabian Society co-founders Hubert Bland and Annie Besant.^[8]

Activism

1891: Animal welfare and the Humanitarian League

In 1891, Salt formed the Humanitarian League. Its objectives included the banning of hunting as a sport (in this respect it can be regarded as a fore-runner of the League Against Cruel Sports). In 1914 The League published a whole volume of essays on Killing for Sport, the preface was written by George Bernard Shaw. The book formed in summary form the Humanitarian League's arraignment of blood-sports.^[6]

1894: Animal rights

Keith Tester writes that, in 1894, Salt created an "epistemological break," by being the first writer to consider the issue of animal rights explicitly, as opposed to better animal welfare.^[4] In Animals' Rights: Considered in Relation to Social Progress, Salt wrote that he wanted to "set the principle of animals' rights on a consistent and intelligible footing, [and] to show that this principle underlies the various efforts of humanitarian reformers ...":

He wrote that there is no point in claiming rights for animals if we subordinate their rights to human interests, and he argued against the presumption that a human life necessarily has more value than a nonhuman one:

Selected publications

See also

• Veganism

Notes

Further reading

• Hendrick, George. Henry Salt: Humanitarian Reformer and Man of Letters (1977)
• Hendrick, George and Hendrick, Willene Hendrick. (eds.) The Savour of Salt: A Henry Salt Anthology. Centaur Press, 1989. ISBN 090000130-5