A family affair

Preserving its reputation for creating the finest equipment, J Salter &Sons continues to trade to this day

There are many sports that have long been inextricably associated with an equipment manufacturer: Slazenger (lawn tennis), Hardy Brothers (fishing rods and reels), Gilbert (rugby), Holland & Holland and James Purdey & Sons (gun and rifle makers). The brand that has been linked with polo from its outset is J Salter & Sons. In 1927, Salter was able to claim in The Polo Monthly that ‘the majority of the leading players in the polo world have, for years, selected Salter equipment as the correct articles for the game’.

James Oliver Salter, the company’s founder, was born in 1847 in Exminster, Devon. Having enlisted in the Royal Artillery, he served in India, where polo was a major preoccupation of the British Army. In 1876, he married Alice Walbridge and, in 1880, with a growing family, they returned to England. After 21 years’ service, he retired from the Army.

While in India, Salter had built a reputation for the repair of racquets and polo sticks, so decided to set himself up in business as a sports outfitter. The garrison town of Aldershot was the home of the British Army and birthplace of polo in Britain, so it was natural that J Salter & Sons first opened its doors in 1884 in the town. Indeed, two decades earlier, it was in Aldershot that ‘Chicken’ Hartopp had read the article in The Field of 20 March 1869 about ‘Hockey on Ponyback’ and then, with five or six fellow officers of the 10th Hussars, had played the first makeshift game of polo in England.

J Salter & Sons soon developed a reputation as the leading polo-stick makers. The firm was noted for its high standards and vast stock of well-seasoned polo heads, canes and balls.

Salter maintained that the three essentials to a perfect polo mallet were: a perfect grip, a well-balanced and seasoned cane, and a head of the correct weight. The company invited customers to send their favourite polo stick ‘as,

after a life’s study, we are able to make any stick to match each client’s wish and requirement’.

It received tributes from many of the era’s leading polo players. John Watson, the captain of the British team that played against America in the first Westchester Cup in 1886, wrote to James Salter to say that, ‘having used your balls and canes for several years, I can with pleasure testify to their excellence, and recommend to my friends who do not patronise you to do so, if they have any difficulty in getting what they want’. Meanwhile, Edward Miller, who, with his brothers, founded the Rugby and Roehampton polo clubs, wrote: ‘I consider your sticks the best I have ever used, and your balls too.’

By the beginning of the 20th century, J Salter & Sons was supplying most of the world’s polo clubs, including London’s Hurlingham, Ranelagh and Roehampton, as well as Meadow Brook in Long Island, the Hawaiian Club in Honolulu and clubs in Australia and New Zealand.

A player was able to completely kit out both himself and his string of ponies from Salter and the company was well known for its patent pony boots, bandages, saddlery, bridles, bits, whips, caps, helmets and jerseys. It counted among its customers Winston Churchill and received Royal Warrants from both HRH the Duke of Edinburgh and HRH the Prince of Wales. Apart from individual players, Salter also supplied famous teams such as the British and American teams that played in the Westchester Cup matches in the first half of the 20th century. Underlining the company’s central role in polo history, in the Museum of Polo in Florida, there is a permanent display of Salter polo equipment.

In 1936, a correspondent of the The Daily Telegraph watched the American Westchester Cup team compete against the British Army side at Aldershot and, while there, went to see the fine collection of photographs, cartoons and equipment of great players in the possession of J Salter & Sons. The correspondent noted that the favourite sticks of polo enthusiasts including the Duke of Gloucester and the Maharajah of Kashmir, were hanging on racks, each waiting to be copied faithfully for their owners.

James Salter’s son Sydney took over the running of the business on his father’s retirement. He continued the tradition of making the finest sticks, which remained in demand the world over, taking on Raymond Turner, a young apprentice, to assist him. Turner learnt the art of making polo sticks and he, too, became a great craftsman. On James Salter’s retirement, he took over the running of the shop and eventually purchased it. Under his stewardship, the company continued to flourish. It met the increasing competition for the manufacture of sporting goods from India and China, and of polo sticks from South America by continuing to insist on the best materials and maintaining the high standards of workmanship that had always been the hallmark of the Salter brand.

In the Nineties, Sean Arnold bought the J Salter & Sons brand and premises. Back in 1978, he had set up a business dealing in sporting antiques. Using early Salter catalogues as reference, Arnold has continued the company’s history of crafting by hand top-quality sporting goods using only the finest woods and leather. Within the original premises where J Salter established his business in 1884, there is now a small museum dedicated to him, alongside Sean Arnold’s impressive collection of sporting memorabilia, ephemera and vintage leather goods – a fitting tribute to a company at the heart of polo history.