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Henry Stephens Salt
Henry Shakespear Stephens Salt (/sɔːlt, sɒlt/; 20 September 1851 – 19 April 1939) was a British writer and social reformer. He campaigned for social reform in the fields of prisons, schools, economic institutions, and the treatment of animals. He was a noted ethical vegetarian, anti-vivisectionist, socialist, and pacifist, and was well known as a literary critic, biographer, classical scholar and naturalist. It was Salt who introduced Mohandas Gandhi to the works of Henry David Thoreau, and influenced Gandhi's study of vegetarianism. Salt is considered, by some, to be the "father of animal rights", having been one of the first writers to argue explicitly in favour of animal rights, rather than just improvements to animal welfare, in his book Animals' Rights: Considered in Relation to Social Progress (1892).
Henry Shakespear Stephens Salt was born in Naini Tal, British India, on 20 September 1851. He was the son of a British Army colonel. In 1852, while he was still an infant, Salt moved with his family to England. He was a King's Scholar at Eton College and later studied the classical tripos at King's College, Cambridge, winning the Browne Medal in 1874 (for Greek epigrams), and graduating with a first-class degree in 1875.
After Cambridge, Salt returned to Eton as an assistant schoolmaster to teach classics. Four years later, in 1879, he married the scholar Catherine (Kate) Leigh 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.
During his lifetime Salt wrote almost 40 books. His first, A Plea for Vegetarianism (1886) was published by the Vegetarian Society, 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, in On Cambrian and Cumbrian Hills (1922), about the need for nature conservation to protect the natural beauty of the British countryside from commercial vandalism.[citation needed]
His circle of friends included many notable figures from late-19th and early-20th century literary and political life, including writers Algernon Charles Swinburne, John Galsworthy, James Leigh Joynes (brother-in-law), Edward Carpenter, Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling, Havelock Ellis, Count Leo Tolstoy, William Morris, Arnold Hills, Ralph Hodgson, Peter Kropotkin, Ouida, J. Howard Moore, Ernest Bell, George Bernard Shaw and Robert Cunninghame-Graham, as well as Labour leader James Keir Hardie and Fabian Society co-founders Hubert Bland and Annie Besant.
Salt's shift toward vegetarianism developed alongside his evolving social, political, and religious views, significantly influenced by Shelley, whom he regarded as a key mentor. Howard Williams' The Ethics of Diet praised by Salt for its humane diet advocacy, also played a role in shaping his views. Salt's vegetarianism was ultimately based on a deep moral conviction. He saw that meat, commonly regarded as food, was actually the flesh of animals slaughtered under harsh conditions. This understanding prompted him to scrutinise the ethical foundations of civilisation, which he viewed as concealing a fundamental barbarism and violence. He identified this underlying brutality in both humanity's treatment of other species and in political, economic, and social relationships, as demonstrated by war, imperialism, and the social injustices resulting from a competitive capitalist system.
Salt's commitment to vegetarianism deepened over time. In 1885, he was named a vice-president of the Vegetarian Society. The following year, he published A Plea for Vegetarianism and Other Essays, an anthology emphasising his rational approach to vegetarian advocacy over emotional or polemical arguments. Salt argued that vegetarianism was not merely a dietary choice but a critical component of a broader social reform movement aimed at creating a more humane, just, and civil society, which he termed "humanitarianism".
Notably, Salt's writings influenced Gandhi to transition from a religiously motivated vegetarianism to an explicitly ethical one. After encountering Salt's Plea for Vegetarianism in a London vegetarian restaurant, Gandhi read it thoroughly and was profoundly impressed. He chose to become a vegetarian by choice, dedicating himself to promoting the diet. Gandhi supported the British vegetarian movement and shared a platform with Salt at a 1931 London Vegetarian Society meeting, where he delivered a speech titled "The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism" explaining his dietary principles.
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Henry Stephens Salt
Henry Shakespear Stephens Salt (/sɔːlt, sɒlt/; 20 September 1851 – 19 April 1939) was a British writer and social reformer. He campaigned for social reform in the fields of prisons, schools, economic institutions, and the treatment of animals. He was a noted ethical vegetarian, anti-vivisectionist, socialist, and pacifist, and was well known as a literary critic, biographer, classical scholar and naturalist. It was Salt who introduced Mohandas Gandhi to the works of Henry David Thoreau, and influenced Gandhi's study of vegetarianism. Salt is considered, by some, to be the "father of animal rights", having been one of the first writers to argue explicitly in favour of animal rights, rather than just improvements to animal welfare, in his book Animals' Rights: Considered in Relation to Social Progress (1892).
Henry Shakespear Stephens Salt was born in Naini Tal, British India, on 20 September 1851. He was the son of a British Army colonel. In 1852, while he was still an infant, Salt moved with his family to England. He was a King's Scholar at Eton College and later studied the classical tripos at King's College, Cambridge, winning the Browne Medal in 1874 (for Greek epigrams), and graduating with a first-class degree in 1875.
After Cambridge, Salt returned to Eton as an assistant schoolmaster to teach classics. Four years later, in 1879, he married the scholar Catherine (Kate) Leigh 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.
During his lifetime Salt wrote almost 40 books. His first, A Plea for Vegetarianism (1886) was published by the Vegetarian Society, 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, in On Cambrian and Cumbrian Hills (1922), about the need for nature conservation to protect the natural beauty of the British countryside from commercial vandalism.[citation needed]
His circle of friends included many notable figures from late-19th and early-20th century literary and political life, including writers Algernon Charles Swinburne, John Galsworthy, James Leigh Joynes (brother-in-law), Edward Carpenter, Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling, Havelock Ellis, Count Leo Tolstoy, William Morris, Arnold Hills, Ralph Hodgson, Peter Kropotkin, Ouida, J. Howard Moore, Ernest Bell, George Bernard Shaw and Robert Cunninghame-Graham, as well as Labour leader James Keir Hardie and Fabian Society co-founders Hubert Bland and Annie Besant.
Salt's shift toward vegetarianism developed alongside his evolving social, political, and religious views, significantly influenced by Shelley, whom he regarded as a key mentor. Howard Williams' The Ethics of Diet praised by Salt for its humane diet advocacy, also played a role in shaping his views. Salt's vegetarianism was ultimately based on a deep moral conviction. He saw that meat, commonly regarded as food, was actually the flesh of animals slaughtered under harsh conditions. This understanding prompted him to scrutinise the ethical foundations of civilisation, which he viewed as concealing a fundamental barbarism and violence. He identified this underlying brutality in both humanity's treatment of other species and in political, economic, and social relationships, as demonstrated by war, imperialism, and the social injustices resulting from a competitive capitalist system.
Salt's commitment to vegetarianism deepened over time. In 1885, he was named a vice-president of the Vegetarian Society. The following year, he published A Plea for Vegetarianism and Other Essays, an anthology emphasising his rational approach to vegetarian advocacy over emotional or polemical arguments. Salt argued that vegetarianism was not merely a dietary choice but a critical component of a broader social reform movement aimed at creating a more humane, just, and civil society, which he termed "humanitarianism".
Notably, Salt's writings influenced Gandhi to transition from a religiously motivated vegetarianism to an explicitly ethical one. After encountering Salt's Plea for Vegetarianism in a London vegetarian restaurant, Gandhi read it thoroughly and was profoundly impressed. He chose to become a vegetarian by choice, dedicating himself to promoting the diet. Gandhi supported the British vegetarian movement and shared a platform with Salt at a 1931 London Vegetarian Society meeting, where he delivered a speech titled "The Moral Basis of Vegetarianism" explaining his dietary principles.