Arthur Herbert Drummond Steel (Steel Maitland)

Arthur Herbert Drummond Steel [Steel-Maitland] was born on 5 July 1876 in India. He was educated at Rugby School and Balliol College, Oxford, graduating in 1900. On his marriage in 1901 to Mary, the daughter of Sir James Ramsay-Gibson-Maitland, he changed his surname to Ramsay-Steel-Maitland. Between 1902 and 1905, he served as private secretary to two Chancellors of the Exchequer and was appointed special commissioner to the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws. In 1906, he stood unsuccessfully as Conservative Member of Parliament for Rugby, and in 1910 succeeded in winning the seat for East Birmingham. In 1911, he was appointed chairman of the Unionist Party, and during the First World War, served as under-secretary for the Colonies (1915 - 1917), and under-secretary for the Foreign Office and the Board of Trade (1917 - 1919). In 1919, he joined the board of the Rio Tinto Company, later becoming managing director, a post he held until 1924, when he entered the Cabinet as Minister of Labour. In 1929, he lost his seat in the general election, but returned to Parliament later the same year after winning a by-election in Tamworth, a seat he held until his death on 30 March 1935 at Rye.

From the guide to the Arthur Drummond Steel collection, 1912, (Scott Polar Research Institute, University of Cambridge)