Born to Dr Henry Hyde Salter,
FRS (1823–71) and his wife Henrietta, Salter was educated at
Wimborne Grammar School and
King's College London, where he studied arts and law. He married Mary Dorothea (d. 1917) in 1894, daughter of Major J. H. Lloyd. Him and Mary had a daughter and a son, 2nd Lieutenant John Henry Clavell Salter, who was killed in action in
World War 1 in 1918. After Mary's death, he married Nora Constance, of Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Heathcote Ouchterloney. == Career ==