Alfred Salter

Alfred Salter (16 June 1873 – 24 August 1945) was a British medical practitioner and Labour Party politician.

Salter was born in Greenwich in 1873, the son of Walter Hookway Salter and Elizabeth Tester. Following education at The John Roan School, Greenwich, he went on to study medicine at Guy's Hospital, London. He qualified in 1896 and in the following year was awarded the Golding-Bird gold medal and scholarship in public health, and the Gull research scholarship in pathology. He was made house physician and resident obstetric physician at Guy's and was appointed as bacteriologist to what later became the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine.

In 1898 he became a resident at the Methodist Settlement in Bermondsey, an area of south-east London alongside the River Thames, then an area of "poverty that is stark and staring" and some of the most appalling slums in London. In the 19th century Bermondsey specialised in leather but in the 20th century the major sources of employment were the food factories, employing mostly women, and the docks, employing men. Most of the men working in the docks were employed on a contingent daily basis; the casual nature of this work made it difficult to make a decent living. While at the Settlement, which had been established by Rev. John Scott Lidgett, Salter set up mutual health insurance schemes and adult education classes on health matters. In 1900 he married Ada Brown, who shared his political and social views, and in 1902 a daughter was born, Ada Joyce Salter. Joyce died in 1910 after a scarlet fever epidemic swept through the slums. She was their only child.

In the year of his marriage he established his medical practice in Bermondsey, and the couple worked together in trying to alleviate the effects of poverty in the largely working class area. He chose to offer services free to those who could not pay. This work was to lead the establishment of a pioneering comprehensive health service in the area. (See the background to the formation of the NHS.)

Salter decided that by entering politics he could effect changes to the squalid environment in Bermondsey far more quickly and profoundly than he could outside the political arena. He was elected to Bermondsey Borough Council in 1903, and was also a member of the local board of guardians. In March 1906 he was elected to fill a vacancy on the London County Council, representing the seat of Southwark, Bermondsey as a member of the Progressive Party following the election of the sitting councillor, George Cooper, as the area's Member of Parliament. He was re-elected to the LCC in 1907.

In October 1909 George Cooper MP died. Cooper had been elected as a Liberal Party Member of Parliament (MP), and although Salter had succeeded him on the county council, he had since become aligned with the Independent Labour Party (ILP). On 8 October, Alfred Salter was officially announced as the party's candidate at the by-election. The poll was held on 28 October, and Salter received 1,435 votes, finishing third of the three candidates. Crucially, his intervention probably led to the loss of the seat by the Liberals, with the Conservative candidate John Dumphreys securing a majority of 987 votes.

In March 1910 the triennial election of the London County Council was held. Salter was chosen to defend the Bermondsey seat as a Labour candidate against both the Progressives and the Conservative-backed Municipal Reform Party. He was heavily defeated, coming at the bottom of the poll of five candidates. He contested the same seat in 1913, but was again unsuccessful.

All elections were postponed for the duration of the First World War. When a general election was called in December 1918, the parliamentary constituencies were revised under the Representation of the People Act 1918. Salter was selected as Labour Party candidate for the new Bermondsey West seat, and was described in the following terms by The Times: