Henry Stephens Salt
| Henry Salt | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
20 September 1851 British India |
| Died | 19 April 1939 (aged 87) Surrey, England |
| Nationality | British |
| Alma mater | University of Cambridge |
| Occupation | Writer, teacher, social reformer |
| Known for |
Animal rights advocacy Founder of the Humanitarian League |
| Spouse(s) | Catherine (Kate) Joynes |
Henry Stephens Salt (/sɔːlt, sɒlt/; 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, anti-vivisectionist, socialist, and pacifist, and was well known as a literary critic, biographer, classical scholar and naturalist. It was Salt who first introduced Mohandas Gandhi to the influential works of Henry David Thoreau, and influenced Gandhi's study of vegetarianism.
Salt is credited with being the first writer to argue explicitly in favour of animal rights, in his Animals' Rights: Considered in Relation to Social Progress (1894), rather than focusing on improvements to animal welfare. He wrote: "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."
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, and graduated from the University of Cambridge in 1875.
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.
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