Following education at The John Roan School, Greenwich, he went on to study medicine at Guy's Hospital, London.

Crucially, his intervention probably led to the loss of the seat by the Liberals, with the Conservative candidate John Dumphreys securing a majority of 987 votes.

Salter was chosen to defend the Bermondsey seat as a Labour candidate against both the Progressives and the Conservative-backed Municipal Reform Party.

When a general election was called in December 1918, the parliamentary constituencies were revised under the Representation of the People Act 1918.

After a brilliant academic career, he decided to devote himself to work among the poor in Bermondsey, and there he has laboured for many years both as a doctor professionally and as a member of local administrative bodies.

In March both Alfred and his wife Ada were Labour Party candidates in the London County Council elections, standing in the neighbouring electoral divisions of Bermondsey West and Rotherhithe.

Salter was able to overturn the result of the previous year, increasing his vote to 11,578 and unseating Kedward with a majority of 2,902.

"[17] Alfred Salter was a committed Christian and pacifist, a Quaker from 1900 onwards, and later an active member of the Peace Pledge Union.

He was one of the founders of the Socialist Medical Association and a friend of its President Somerville Hastings, with whom he made a trip to the Soviet Union in 1931.

[18] Salter and his friend, George Lansbury, attributed the rise of Hitler to the Treaty of Versailles, which imposed crushing reparations on Germany, and to the existence of the colonial empires.

In 1936 he advocated the calling of a world economic conference and the creation of a new League of Nations to which the possessions of the British Empire could be transferred.

[2] Salter believed appeasement could avert war with Germany, stating in November 1938 that "the average German will withdraw his backing from Hitler if we show willingness to be just".

[19] The failure of appeasement and outbreak of World War II left Salter deeply depressed.

[19] Noting that his constituency was heavily bombed by the Luftwaffe during the Blitz because of its docks, he opposed the strategic bombing of civilian areas in Germany by the Royal Air Force Bomber Command on moral grounds, one of the few Parliamentarians to do so, along with fellow Labour MP Richard Stokes and Bishop George Bell in the House of Lords, Salter was a strong supporter of the Temperance Movement, i.e. abstaining from alcohol, at a time when drink was a major problem for working class women dependent on their husband's wages.

[23] In 1991 a statue ensemble of Alfred and his daughter, Joyce, entitled Dr Salter's Daydream, sculpted by Diane Gorvin, was unveiled on the river-front.