This year has been a particular productive although somewhat overshadowed by the news of the sale of the Henry Salt’s personal collection.
Henry S. Salt Board
We’ve been incredibly fortunate to have Kim Stallwood and Simon Wild join us. Both Kim and Simon have been long term supporters of this project and add a wealth of experience which we’ll need going forward.
Archive Additions
The archive remains the primary focus of our work and over 100 essays, articles, reviews and press letters have been transcribed and added this year.
Henry Salt
Henry Salt’s articles The R.S.P.C.A.: A Criticism and Concerning Cannibalism from the Humane Review are long overdue additions. Among the other highlights are a couple of articles in which Salt champions the work of Francis Adams and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Work has also continued to refine and improve the bibliography section.
Ernest Bell
The Ernest Bell section is always a high priority and this year we’ve made substantial progress. Over a dozen Ernest Bell articles have been transcribed and added including An After Life For Animals, Christmas Cruelties, Some Social Results Of The Meatless Diet, Bird-Caging And Bird-Catching and Why Do Animals Exist? The Ernest Bell bibilography has also been extensively improved and we are grateful to everyone who helped with this.
Our blog section features two articles on George Bell & Sons that give an insight into how Ernest Bell understood the importance publishing to further the causes he championed.
Humanitarian League
Progress with the Humanitian League section has been particually slow with only a couple of minor updates. Henry Salt’s article The Humanitarian League, originally published in The Vegetarian Messenger and Health Review, was later republished in Salt’s Seventy Years Among Savages with some additions. The Humanitarian League’s 1913 and 1914 AGMs were reported in The Inquirer.
Essays and articles by Humanitarian League members and supporters have been added to the archive. These include J. Howard Moore’s The Source of Religion and Why I Am A Vegetarian, Rev. Joseph Stratton’s Blood-Sports and Lord Coleridge’s The Chase of the Wild Red Stag on Exmoor.
Research
In Stephen Winsten’s Salt biography there was no mention of Helen Pogosky, but our research gives a surprising new insight. The cause of Kate Salt’s death was discovered and explains her sad decline. The cause of death of Henry Salt’s sister was revealed. Much has been made of Henry and Kate Salt living close to Edward Carpenter’s residence at Millthorpe but we’ve never been able to find out where in Holmesfield this was. Reviewing census records and old maps it’s been possible to identify a likely location on Horsleygate Lane.
Our research into Ernest Bell’s first marriage to Elise Wölfel revealed particularly sad story.
Henry Salt’s Personal Collection
Finally the discovery that Henry Salt’s personal collection had been auctioned off by Jon Wynne-Tyson’s family in 2020 cast a long shadow over the year. A priceless collection for researchers and those trying to promote the ideas of Henry Salt has been lost. Mrs Catherine Salt gave the collection to Jon in order to help preserve the work of Henry Salt. To see Jon’s family treating her collection as something just to enrich themselves was particularly distasteful.
