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 W H Salter. Following education at 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 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 with widespread poverty. The major source of employment in the area during the 20th century until the 1970s was the Port of London. Until the docks were nationalised after World War II, 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, and Bermondsey was an area of great poverty 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.