John Steele was born on 27^th May 1855 at Alexandria, Dunbartonshire.

John lost his father, also John Steele, when he was four years of age.

At the time of the 1861 census, John was five years of age and living with his widowed mother, Janet McAuslan, in Main Street, Renton.

At the time of the 1881 census, John Steel, aged 26 and unmarried, occupied an adjacent single apartment in the home of his future mother-in-law Mrs Frances Dinning MS Newall at 4, Elliot Street, Hillhead, Glasgow and was described as a ‘lodger’. His place of birth was entered as Alexandria, Dunbartonshire, and he was designated as a shopman (baker).

John Steele married Frances Dinning on 31^st October 1883 at 4, Elliot Street, Anderston, Glasgow, after publication according to the forms of the United Presbyterian Church. John was designated as a baker (journeyman), (bachelor), aged 28. Both parties were usually resident at 4, Elliot Street. It may be noted that the witnesses to the ceremony were James Steele and Margaret Dinning, presumably the groom’s brother and bride’s sister respectively.

John Steele was a baker (foreman), probably living at Glenkin Cottage, Renton, when he acted as informant on the 1884 birth certificate of his son John Aulay Steele.

John and Frances Steele with son John and daughter Frances, c. 1891

John and Frances Steele with their children, in order of descending age, John, Frances, Janet and Archibald; taken in India c. 1901

No record of the family can be found in the census returns for either 1891 or 1901. This period is accounted for by the period which they spent in India, when John was in the civil service. The 1911 census confirms that all three children surviving and living in the family home at this time were born in India: Frances, in 1890, Janet, in 1896, and Archibald, in 1900.

In the Mutual Trust Deed and Settlement subscribed by John’s uncle, Auley or Aulay Steele, and Mary Cochrane or Ross or Steele, Aulay’s wife, at Helensburgh on 28^th March 1895, in which John was named as a beneficiary and under the provisions of which he and his two brothers each stood to inherit a legacy of £300, he was designated ‘John Steele, Bombay’.

John Steele was designated as a ‘stocktaker’ on his daughter Janet’s birth certificate in 1896.

By the time of the 1911 census, the family had returned to Scotland and was resident in a tenement property at 165, Great George Street, Glasgow, having four rooms with one or more windows. It was indicated that John and Frances had been married for twenty-seven years and that they had had six children born alive, of whom four were still living. The full entry reads:

John Steel, head, 56, married, baker, worker, born Dumbarton, Alexandria Frances, wife, 52, born Ayr Frances, daur, 20, single, school teacher in Govan, born India Janet M., daur, 14, school, born India Arch, son, 10, school, born India John Newall, boarder, 37, single, school teacher in Glasgow, born Glasgow

It seems likely that John Newall was a relative of Mrs Steel.

John Steele was designated as an insurance agent at the time of his son John Aulay Steele’s marriage in 1916.

On his daughter Janet’s marriage certificate in 1919, John was designated as a ‘baker (foreman)’. He was recalled on his wife’s death certificate as a ‘baker (master)’. A sharp change in career direction is indicated by Janet’s 1957 death certificate, on which he was recalled as a ‘company director (deceased)’. Son Archibald’s 1938 marriage certificate and daughter Frances’s 1965 death certificate recalled him as a ‘baker - master’. Son John’s 1965 death certificate recalled him simply as a baker.

John Steele, a ‘Baker (Journeyman)’, 28, married to Frances Dinning, died on 12^th April 1920 at 7^h 45^m pm at 3, Caird Drive, Partick, Glasgow. He was 64 years of age. The cause of death was certified as a cerebral haemorrhage, from which he had been suffering for ten days. The informant was Frances N. Steele, his daughter, who had been present at the time of death.

Comparatively little information has been handed down on the subject of John Steele. However, it is related by his granddaughter, Elizabeth Frances Stuart Brown, that he is said to have enjoyed sandwiches involving bizarre combinations of fillings, a trait also evidenced in her daughter Lucy McIntyre.

Inventory

The following entry appears in Confirmations & Inventories, 1920, p. 881:

STEELE, John, Baker, 3 Caird Drive, Partick, Glasgow, died 12 April 1920, at Glasgow, intestate. Confirmation granted at Glasgow, 13 May to Frances Dinning Steele, 3 Caird Drive aforesaid, his daughter, Executrix dative qua next of kin. Value of Estate, £115 17s. 9d.

This Inventory of his Personal Estate, exclusively located in Scotland, was presented for registration at Glasgow on 1^st May 1920 by Donaldson and Alexander, Solicitors, of 186, St Vincent Street, Glasgow, is tabulated as follows (Wills and testaments Reference SC36/48/309, Glasgow Sheriff Court Inventories, pp. 745-48):

1. Cash in the House	1  -   -
2. Sum in Policy of Assurance No. 8875 of the Caledonian Insurance Company £100 with Bonus additions £81:12: 6     £181:12: 6 Less:- Loan by the Company to deceased     £55: -: - Interest @ 5% from 20th December 1919, less tax 5/2.     -:12: - Non Forfeitable Debt due to Company.     20:  9:  6 76:  1:  6 Note:- In Security of Loan the Policy was fully assigned to the Insurance Compy.	85 11 -
3. Sum in Policy of Assurance No. C/A 170719 of The Scottish Legal Life Assurance Society Insurance Branch.	7   1  -
4. Scottish Union of Operative Bakers and Confectioners (Glasgow Branch) in respect of contribution made by deceased.	9  18  -
5. Proceeds of ‘Automatic Insurance’ with the St. George Co-operative Society Ltd., Partick.	12  7  9
	115 17 9

Miss Frances Dinning Steele, acting as the deceased’s Executrix Dative qua next of kin, residing at 3, Caird Drive, Partick, Glasgow, appeared in presence of Daniel Munro Alexander, Solicitor, Glasgow, Notary Public, at Glasgow on 26^th April 1920 and, being solemnly sworn and examined, made the usual declarations.

Mrs Margaret Milne, widow, 1005, Argyle Street, Glasgow, and Miss (sic) Janet McAslan Stuart Brown, the deceased’s other daughter, both compeared in order to depone that Frances was indeed a daughter of the defunct.

It is not specified whose widow Mrs Milne was but it is provisionally understood that she was the sister of John Steele’s widow, Frances Steele MS Dinning, who, as Margaret Dinning, aged 30, had married Archibald Milne in Anderston in 1885 and was widowed in 1919.

Duty of £1 10/- was payable on the estate, the total value of which was £115 17/9d. The deceased did not own any heritable property.

Brothers and Sisters

It appears from John’s birth certificate (although the writing is not entirely clear) that he was his mother’s first child. He had two younger brothers, James McAuslane Steele, born 1857, and Archibald Clark Steele, born 1859.