A Victorian Naturalist's Odyssey: The Life and Times of Professor John Henry Salter DSc (London) 1862 - 1942

This tale is of a scholarly man, whom I was privileged to know. He passed through the last decade of his life as I passed through my teens. He had seen the British Empire reach its zenith, a period when no value was placed on wild-life conservation. Big game hunting having been approved of in the highest echelons of society. Birds had suffered badly and amongst them in the UK was the Red Kite. By 1870 it had virtually been wiped out except for a few pairs in the fastnesses of rural Wales. Having entered Wales in 1891to joint the Botany Department of the University, Dr Salter heard of their parlous plight and in 1893 bent his shoulder to the wheel. All this gave scope for expanding a simple biography into the Life and Times of Dr Salter: hence the title Odyssey. It also allowed me to show how an interest in natural history can lead to the most unexpected places and into the company of people from all walks of life in both war and peace.