Frederick Wilberforce Alexander STEELE

STEELE, Frederick Wilberforce Alexander

Service Numbers: Not yet discovered
Enlisted: Not yet discovered
Last Rank: Captain
Last Unit: Not yet discovered
Born: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 12 September 1885
Home Town: Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria
Schooling: Melbourne Grammar School, Geelong College, Victoria, Australia
Occupation: Not yet discovered
Died: Killed In Action, France, 25 October 1914, aged 29 years
Cemetery: No known grave - "Known Unto God"
Le Touret Memorial - Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France
Memorials: Geelong College WW1 Roll of Honour, MCC Roll of Honour 1914 - 1918 - Melbourne Cricket Club, Melbourne Grammar School WW1 Fallen Honour Roll, Melbourne St Paul's Anglican Cathedral "Steele" Memorial Plaque
Show Relationships

World War 1 Service

Date unknown: Involvement Captain, 7th Royal Fusiliers

Help us honour Frederick Wilberforce Alexander Steele's service by contributing information, stories, and images so that they can be preserved for future generations.

Biography contributed by Faithe Jones

The son of Philip John Bickett Steele and Johanna Albertina nee Ekman, Fred Steele was born on 12 September 1885 and later educated at Melbourne Grammar School and the Geelong College. He was appointed a Lieutenant in the Australian Field Artillery in 1905, and subsequently passed into the British Army in England in 1907. He travelled with 2nd Battalion, Royal Fusiliers, to Jubbulpore, in India, in 1910, and returned to Australia on leave in 1913. On returning to England he transferred to the 4th Battalion, and was stationed in the Isle of Wight. He left England for France with his regiment on 23 August, 1914, the first day of the Battle of Mons, and was wounded a few weeks later. On his return to the front, Captain F W A Steele was killed at the First Ypres Battle on 29 October, 1914 and has no known grave. His younger brother, Lt Phillip John Rupert (Rupert) Steele, 4th FAB died on 8 January 1917 of wounds sustained in France on 15 November the previous year. Another brother, 2nd Lt Norman Leslie Steele, Australian Flying Corps (AFC), died while a prisoner of war in Hareira, Palestine on 20 April, 1917 of wounds sustained after his machine crashed behind Turkish lines. A third brother, Sgt Henry Cyril Augustus (Cyril) Steele, 4th FAB, had been discharged for urgent family reasons after the death of his brothers Fred and Phillip (Rupert) and was on his way home from England at the time Norman was killed.

Read more...