Henry S. Salt

Henry Shakespear Stephens Salt (20 September 1851 – 19 April 1939) was a British writer and social reformer. He campaigned on prison reform, education, economic institutions, vegetarianism, anti-vivisectionism, pacifism, and the treatment of animals. Salt was also a literary critic, biographer, classical scholar, and naturalist. He introduced Mohandas Gandhi to the writings of Henry David Thoreau, and influenced Gandhi's views on vegetarianism. The International Vegetarian Union has described Salt as the "father of animal rights"; his Animals' Rights: Considered in Relation to Social Progress (1892) was among the first works to argue explicitly for animal rights, rather than only for improved animal welfare.

Early life and career

Henry Shakespear Stephens Salt was born in Naini Tal, British India, on 20 September 1851, the son of a British Army colonel. In 1852, while still an infant, he moved with his family to England. He was a King's Scholar at Eton College and later read classics at King's College, Cambridge, where he studied the classical tripos. He won the Browne Medal in 1874 for Greek epigrams and graduated with a first-class degree in 1875.

After graduating, Salt returned to Eton as an assistant master and taught classics. In 1879, he married Catherine (Kate) Leigh Joynes, the daughter of a fellow Eton master. He remained at Eton until 1884, when he left the school and moved with his wife to a cottage at Tilford, Surrey. They grew their own vegetables and lived on a small pension that Salt had accumulated. He devoted himself to writing and became involved in humanitarian reform, later co-founding the Humanitarian League.