Second Lieutenant, 126 Siege Battery, Royal Garrison Artillery. Died of wounds 22 March 1918. Aged 28. Son of Mortyn John and Alice Salter, of Bank House, Mickleton, Campden, Glos. Buried in GREVILLERS BRITISH CEMETERY, Pas de Calais, France. Plot XI. Row A. Grave 2.

Donald Sowerby Salter was born 1890 in Friern Barnet, one of nine children of Martyn John Salter and Alice (nee Wilding). In 1891 Martyn is recorded as being a chemist in a “colour/ink factory”. The 1901 census shows Donald living with his family. His father at this time is registered as being unemployed but his brother Martyn is working as a clerk in the “Rainfall Office”. Donald was educated at Bancroft's School, a private school in Woodford, Essex and later at Camden School of Art.

He was appointed cartographer to the British Rainfall Organisation in 1908, an organization for which his father also worked at some point. By 1911, Donald wass boarding with his brother Harold, in the home of James Edward’s family in “Merana”, Tennyson Road, Mill Hill. He was working as a map draughtsman. From 1908 - 1916, he plotted and drew hundreds of rainfall maps, most of which appeared in publications such as British Rainfall and Symons's Meteorological Magazine.He also worked towards the eventual publication of a Rainfall Atlas and was elected Fellow of the Royal Meterological Society in March 1915.

Donald joined the Royal Engineers in 1916 and was posted to the Western Front with 126 Siege Battery on 25th July 1916. He was wounded and invalided home the same year.

He received his commission to the Royal Garrison Artillery in 1917. In April 1917 the battery suffered significant casualties. He was killed in action, aged 28, on 22 March 1918.

By this time his address is given as Bank House, Mickleton, Chipping Campden, Glos. His probate record shows that he left £166 18s and 5d to his mother, Alice.

He is buried at Grevillers British Cemetery.

The following statement was incorporated in the “British Rainfall 1917” booklet produced by the Rainfall Organisation:

“The Late D. S. Salter. —I have to record, with much regret the death from wounds of Sec. Lieut. Donald S. Salter, E.G.A., on March 22nd, 1918. He had been for nearly ten years a member of the staff and had developed remarkable powers as a cartographer and map draughtsman. It is sufficient to turn over the volumes of our publications since that for 1906 to see how the quality of the map-work, which is an essential in the treatment of rainfall distribution, improved as its quantity increased from year to year. This is mainly due to the devotion with which Donald Salter applied himself to all branches of this difficult and highly technical work. He had got it to go so smoothly that it was only when he joined the Army that we realized how heavy the burden of this department had become and how difficult it was to improvise methods for carrying on the reduced amount of map-work which appears in the later volumes. A notice of the life and work of Donald Salter will be found in Symons's Meteorological Magazine for April, 1918, p. 25, and it only remains for me here to express my sense of the loss to the British Rainfall Organization and to rainfall research caused by the death of such a capable and promising assistant.”

"THEY WERE A WALL UNTO US BOTH BY NIGHT AND BY DAY."

1939 ALSO IN MEMORY OF MEN OF MILL HILL 1945
WHO FELL IN THE SECOND WORLD WAR