Ellen Matilda Salt was the mother of the writer and humanitarian Henry Shakespear Stephens Salt. She was born on 28 October 1824 in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, the eldest of seven children of the barrister Charles Blake Allnatt and his wife, Elizabeth Sophia Möller.
On 17 August 1850, Ellen married Colonel Thomas Henry Salt at Paul’s Cathedral, Calcutta, Bengal, India, where he was serving with the British Army. Their son, Henry, was born on 20 September 1851 at Nynee Tal, India, and was baptised there the following month.
Ellen returned to England with her infant son in the spring of 1852. Their second child, Ellen Maude Elizabeth Salt, was born in Shrewsbury on 20 December that year. Tragically, she died at Aberystwyth on 16 March 1855, aged only two.
Much of Ellen’s life was shaped by her husband’s military service and her responsibilities as a mother. Her diary records journeys between England and India, as well as the different places where she lived while Henry was growing up. In 1863 she travelled to India, leaving Henry in England in the care of Mrs Venables at Rugby. She returned to England in 1865, travelling via Marseilles, and continued to follow her son’s education as he progressed through school.
Henry spent much of his early childhood in Shrewsbury with his maternal grandparents at 23 The Crescent. Ellen’s diary, entitled Dates of principal events in my life. Written for my son, provides a valuable personal record of these years, documenting family events, journeys and the successive stages of Henry’s upbringing. Among the events she recorded was the death of her father, Charles Blake Allnatt, at the family home in January 1862.
Ellen died on 28 June 1906, aged 81, at 25 Eridge Road, Tunbridge Wells, Kent. She was buried at Tunbridge Wells Cemetery on 3 July.
Her diary, Diary of Mrs Ellen Matilda Salt, remains an important source for understanding Henry Salt’s early life and the family circumstances in which he grew up.