The Daydream of Dr Salter. Bronze statues of the Salter family by Diane Gorvin, 2014. Joyce leans against the river wall.
GRAHAM TAYLOR
ADA SALTER: PIONEER OF ETHICAL SOCIALISM (2015)
Ada and Alfred Salter were a remarkable couple, who devoted their lives to the community of Bermondsey, in east London. Ada (born 1866) was the daughter of a Methodist family in Northamptonshire. She moved as a young woman to the slums of St. Pancras, then to the Bermondsey Settlement. She had insisted on living and working among the poor, in the slums, since arriving in London. At Bermondsey she met and in 1900 and married the doctor Alfred Slater (born 1873). Alfred, who had been an outstanding medical student, chose not to climb the professional medical ladder, but to devote himself as a general practitioner to the care of the Bermondsey community. He later became the Member of Parliament for the area.
Ada was elected to the Bermondsey Council, rising to become Mayor - the first female Mayor in London. Ada fought to create a garden city out of the slums of Bermondsey, constructing high quality public housing, creating parks and playgrounds, and planting 9,000 trees. The Salters suffered a tragic blow when their only child, Joyce, died of scarlet fever at the age of eight during one of the many eipidemics that swept through poor areas of London.
Graham Taylor’s biography of Ada Salter traces her life and remarkable achievements, and those of her equally remarkable husband Alfred. The video below, by Mark Parker, describes a moving group of bronze statues of the Salter family (and their cat) by Diane Gorvin. These statues, titled The Daydream of Dr Salter, were installed on the Thames riverside in Bermondsey in 2014.
watch a video
CLICK HERE FOR A VIDEO ABOUT THE SALTER STATUES BY MARK PARKER (3 MINUTES)
Graham Taylor, the author of this biography of Ada Salter, took a degree in Modern History at Worcester College, Oxford, and then spent much of his career in industry. He went on to teach History at West London College. He writes and lectures of trade union, religious and political history.
