Born at Rathdowney (Airlie) Co. Queen's, Ireland, c.1826.
Enlisted at Dublin on the 22nd of April 1845.
Age: 18 years 9 months.
Height: 5' 6".
Trade: Labourer.
Appearance: Sallow complexion. Grey eyes. Lt. brown hair.
Embarked for the Crimea aboard the H.T. "Shooting Star" on the 25th of April 1854.
From Private to Corporal: 1st of November 1854.
At Scutari General Hospital from the 22nd of November 1854 and invalided to England on the 23rd of March, 1855.
He was at the Invalid Depot, Chatham, 26th of March — 15th of June 1855, when he was sent to Dublin "on furlo, till discharge."
Discharged from Chatham Invalid Depot, on the 12th of July 1855.
"Disabled by lameness — after frost bite of the great toes of both feet in the Crimea," Served 8 years 326 days.
Conduct: "good".
In possession of one Good Conduct badge.
Once tried by a Regimental Court-martial — the particulars of which cannot be given as the Court-martial book is with the Service troops in the Crimea.
He was "confined" and later imprisoned by a Regimental Court-martial from the 4th of January — 4th of February 1848 and to six months loss of "beer money". His offence was not specified.
Aged 27 years 9 months on discharge.
Awarded a pension of 1/- per day. Pension details quoted until the 1st of November 1892.
Entitled to the Crimean medal with clasps for Alma, Balaclava, Inkerman, and Sebastopol.
He was living in Melbourne, Australia, from the 10th of October 1857.
Transferred from the Birr Pension District to the Melbourne District, having been paid at Birr up to the 30th of September 1857. He is shown at Melbourne at least to December 1878.
Letter sent to the Treasury Office, Sydney, Australia. dated 31/11/92.
Article from the Windsor and Richmond Gazette, published October 1888:
"A Neglected Hero — Few people living but are acquainted, more or less fully, with the facts of the splendid feat in arms, immortalised by Tennyson and which will be known in history, when every individual hero of it shall be laid to rest, as "The Charge of the Light Brigade."
It is not generally known that we have in Cootamundra, says an exchange, one of the gallant 600, who rode into the very jaws of death with "cannons to the right of them, cannons to the left of them, cannons in front of them," — in the person of H. Steele, a vendor of oranges! This may sound like coming down from the sublime to the ridiculous, but so it is.
Mr. Steele generally has about him the proud mementoes of the glorious campaign in the Crimea, in the shape of two silver medals, one being presented by Queen Victoria in person, bearing the name, his regiment (8th K.R. Hussars) also, on four silver lines, the names of the four great features of that campaign, Sebastopol, Inkerman, Balaclava and Alma.
The other medal was presented by the Sultan of Turkey, "La Crimea, 1855; One of the 600." Not more than a third of them came out of that singular dash. England, as a rule, treats her heroes great and small, rich and poor, handsomely; but since the remote days of princely annuities have been paid to the Marlborough's [sic] down to the good for nothing Duke of the present day, and it appears to us high time that some of these ancient heroes were knocked off the roll, and better justice done to the latter day warriors.
One shilling a day to a corporal, and one of the few remaining 600 heroes, looks mean and unworthy of the Mother country.
[Cootamundra is a town in New South Wales, Australia, about 75 miles the north-west of Canberra.]
In 1996, following enquiries made by Dr. Kenny of Glen Iris, Melbourne, Australia, new information about Steele was learnt from a lady correspondent for the local newspaper in Cootamundra who had written a book about the area.
He had died at Cootamundra on the 16th of January 1894, aged 66 years, from "Senile Decay, about 12 months". His occupation was reported as a Retired Gaol Warder.
His death certificate (see copy in the 8th Hussar file) shows him as having lived in Australia for 33 years, and left a widow (having married Maria Frost at Bowral, NSW. at the age of 43) and four children (one deceased), their ages ranging from 9 to 21 years.
He was buried in Cootamundra Cemetery on the 19th of January. He was a Methodist.
Extracts from the Cootamundra Herald, 25th of September 1886 and 20th of January 1894:
"The 23rd anniversary [sic] of the battle of the Alma was celebrated in Sydney on Monday night, Sergeant Dalton [ 1136 Charles Dalton, 8th Hussars] of the 8th King's Royal Irish Hussars, having called a few old comrades together for the purpose.
We may also state that the event was toasted also in Cootamundra by a couple of Crimean heroes — Corporal O'Dwyer, who was engaged at the battle of the Alma, of Muttama, and our town hero (Steel) of Cardigan's Light Brigade. Tomorrow (Sunday, [sic] is the anniversary of the great battle of Balaclava.
Death. — We have to record the death of Mr. Hugh Steele, the veteran soldier, of this town. He had been very feeble and ailing for some considerable time. He leaves a widow and a grown family."
It was also learnt that a great-granddaughter (a descendant of his eldest son, Eyre Massey) lives in Jasper's Brush, NSW, Australia, and she has provided the following.
His full name was Hugh Massey Dillon Steele, and a son of John Steele and his wife, Elizabeth Leighton, nee Massey. He had married Maria Frost, born in Suffolk, England. (She had arrived in Australia aboard the "Beejapore" on the 14th of March 1857, but the family had not been able to find out just when and how Hugh M.D. Steele had arrived in the province) the daughter of John Frost and his wife, Eliza, nee Crosby.
The marriage had taken place on the 23rd of August 1870 according to the rites of the Weslyan Church and a John Frost, and possibly her father, was one of the witnesses. (She died on the 20th of June 1923 at the age of 71 and was buried in Grave No. 15 Section E. in the Randwick Cemetery, Coogee, near Sydney.) Hugh Steele was shown as a "Gentleman" on his marriage certificate, but later as a Gaol Warder, stationed at Berima, at the time of the birth of their first child in May of 1872,
However, by the time of the birth of their only daughter, Eva Alma, in 1881, his occupation had changed to that of a Railway Porter. In the NSW Post Office Business Directory for 1886-87 his name is shown, but no trade, in 89-90 he was in business in Cootamundra as a "Book agent", but there is no entry for him in the next available volume for 1894-95.
The present greater family have no photographs of him and his medals were apparently handed down to his eldest son and then again finally to an uncle, who drank himself to death and had sold them for drink money.
Further research has shown that Maria Frost was born at Sicklesmere (in the parish of Great Walthenham, Suffolk) on the 8th of January 1852, her parents, John Frost, born at Bradfield St. Claire and Eliza (nee Crosby) born at Stanningfield, having been married at Bury St. Edmunds in January of 1848, when his father was shown as William Frost and hers as Charles Crosby and his wife, Mary (nee Larst.)
Her parents were married at Stanningfield on the 15th of October 1816. Eliza Crosby was baptised at Stanningfield on the 6th of June 1824.
Information and photographs sent by a member of the staff of the Cootamundra Herald show that in the Wesleyan portion of the Cootamundra Cemetery there is a stone to the memory of Eliza, wife of John Frost, and their son, John William. This would almost certainly be Hugh Steele's wife's mother and brother.
No stone can be found there for Hugh Steele, but iron railings of the same type as around the one erected stone are continued on to surround five more un-marked plots next to it. Could it perhaps be that these are also resting places of other members of the Frost family — and perhaps of Hugh Massey Steele? (See photographs in the 8th Hussar file.)
It has also been ascertained from a local undertaker's records that "Steele was given a very decent burial and cost more than £7." No headstone is recorded as having been erected, neither is the exact plot site known.
Further family information from Australia reveals that Eliza Frost died from drowning and her son (John William Frost) died from "Tuberculosis", John Frost (Senior) died at Moss Vale and is buried there, as is Eyre Massey Steele, and Maria Steele (wife of Hugh Massey Steele) is buried at Randwick, as is their only daughter, Eva Alma.
From this it would appear that the only burials at Cootamundra which can be confirmed in the plot pictured are those of Eliza Frost and John William Frost, with the possibility that Hugh Massey Steele, although he has no stone, was too.
In 1997 it was learnt that another great-grandson was in possession of two photographs of Hugh M. Steele, one as an elderly man, dressed in civilian clothes and wearing his two medals, and another in the uniform of a Hussar regiment. (See copies of both pictures in the 8th Hussar file.)
It had been thought by this new-found relation that another family member still had his medals, but further enquiry showed this was the last person known to have been in possession of them and had sold them in the manner already known.