In about 1880, Salt’s brother-in-law, James Leigh Joynes, who was closely connected with the Social Democratic Federation, met the then-unknown George Bernard Shaw in London and soon brought him to Eton to meet Henry and Kate Salt.
A close friendship began and lasted until Shaw’s marriage in 1898 to Charlotte Payne-Townshend. The Salt-Shaw friendship continued less intimately until Salt died in 1939.
Although Salt and Shaw shared many similar social and political views, they disagreed during the Boer War on socialist support of the war. Still, their differences did not rupture their friendship.
One of Shaw’s visits to the Salts cottage at Tilford offered GBS material for one of his most engaging comic essays, “A Sunday on the Surrey Hills.”
As George Hendrick has commented: “Stephen Winsten in Salt and His Circle overemphasized Salt’s connections with Bernard Shaw, and while that relationship was important for both men, Salt had a vital life of his own.”
Salt’s amusing essay on his relationship is included in The Savour of Salt: A Henry Salt Anthology.
Henry Salt on Bernard Shaw
- Bernard Shaw as Humanitarian, The Humane Review, April 1908
- Salt on Shaw, Salt and His Circle, 1951
- Among the Authors: George Bernard Shaw, Vegetarian Review, February 1897
- The Early G.B.S., The Vegetarian News, July 1938
- Mr Kay Robinson’s Table-Talk, The Vegetarian, March 19, 1898
- Mr Bernard Shaw and His Critics, Seed-Time, January 1891
- More Cabbage-Talk, The Vegetarian Messenger and Health Review, February 1926