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Creek. In 1978, he won preselection for the Melbourne seat of Balaclava by reducing his age from 69 to 59. He was
not successful, the seat being won by the Liberal Party’s Ian McPhee.
Steele had four wives; Jean Drew (1935) and Catherine Lonergan (1938) from Tasmania, Mary Heffernan
(1946) from Sydney and Irmgard Ingrid Goldman from Melbourne whom he married on 16 January 1977.
There were six children; Roger Michael Steele, the eldest of his three sons, became a Northern Territory member
of parliament in 1974 and served as a minister with the Everingham government and later as the Speaker of
the Legislative Assembly. His elder daughter, Sandra, became a nursing sister and matron of a large Tasmanian
hospital and Ted was a successful academic in the Faculty of Science of the University of Wollongong.
Robert George Steele died suddenly on 7 August 1988 at the age of 79. He was survived by his widow,
Ingrid, daughters Sandra and Mignonne and sons, Roger, Robert (Beau) and Edward. He was buried in the Jewish
Memorial Garden, Springvale, Melbourne. At his memorial service the celebrant aptly described him, ‘Some
men live their lives... watching the wheels go round and round. But then there are some, like Bob, who dedicate
their lives to fighting and trying to change the direction of those wheels’. For the good of his fellow man, it must
be stressed. A street in a new industrial subdivision at Winnellie, not far from where the Maranga and District
Progress Association operated, has been named in his honour.
Family records; Northern Territory Archives Service, oral history interview NTRS 226 TS 711; Northern Territory Parliamentary Record,
adjournment debate, 17 May 1995; A Yates, interview by R M Steele, 1989.
HELEN J WILSON, Vol 3.
STEELE, WILLIAM ALLAN BEEVOR (1895–1966), army officer, was born on 4 February 1895, the son of
Charles B Steele, in Gympie, Queensland. He was educated at De La Salle College at Armidale, New South Wales,
and entered the first officers’ course at the Royal Military College, Duntroon, in 1911. Commissioned into the
Permanent Military Forces (PMF) in 1914, he transferred to the Australian Imperial Force (AIF) as a Lieutenant
in the 2nd Light Horse. A year later, he was appointed Adjutant of that regiment. In March 1916, he was made
Staff Captain in the 13th Infantry Brigade. After seven months in this position, he joined 52nd Infantry Battalion.
He returned to Australia one year later and his appointment with the AIF was ended in April 1917.
In that month, Steele resumed his appointment with the Permanent Military Forces as Administrator and
Instructor of Staff of 1st Military District. In November 1918, he was made General Staff Officer Grade Three
of 1st Military District, a position that he maintained for fourteen months. In January 1920, he became Brigade
Major of 1st Light Horse Brigade and, in May 1921, transferred to the same position with 1st Cavalry Brigade.
He remained in this position until December 1924. From August 1922 until December 1 24 he also acted as
Temporary Adjutant and Quarter Master of 11th Light Horse Regiment.
From then until 1936, Steele held various staff appointments, being promoted to Major, Staff Corps in
November 1927 and Brevet Lieutenant Colonel in July 1935. In that rank, he attended training courses in England
from June 1936, returning in August 1937 to take up a staff post at 6th Military District Headquarters. His rank of
Lieutenant Colonel, Staff Corps, was confirmed in July 1938. On 29 April 1940, he was appointed Commandant,
7th Military District (Darwin) with Colonel’s rank, in place of Colonel H C H Robertson. Steele came to Darwin
at a time when Australian confidence in British military capacity and Far Eastern strategy was diminishing and
concern for local defence was rising. The growing defence importance of northern Australia was partly reflected
in Steele’s promotion to Brigadier on 1 September 1940, in extensive upgrading of the road/rail system from the
south and in the placing of two battalions of an AIF brigade (the 23rd) at Darwin in April 1941. In that month
Steele produced a defence plan for the town that was later to be criticised because it lacked defence in depth.
Steele saw the problem; but with only 7 500 troops and totally inadequate logistic support, he could do little more.
Two decades of government defence neglect and continued federal reluctance to allocate resources to the north
meant that Steele was never able to plan a defence that could repel much more than a raiding party on Darwin
itself. He saw the importance of civil defence, giving considerable help to Darwin’s fledgling Air Raid Precautions
(ARP) organisation. This body performed well during an inter-services exercise in August 1941; but exercises
could not still the discontent of the AIF men who saw themselves left in a backwater while their mates were
serving overseas. On 29 August 1941, 23rd Brigade men rioted at a Darwin boxing match. The next day part of the
town suffered riot and looting. Steele’s 7th Military District command ended on 31 August; he could hardly have
left the post with great regret. But his successor, Brigadier D V J Blake failed to support the ARP or to improve
upon Steele’s defence plan, despite increased resources.
In December 1941 Steele was seconded to the AIF, serving in administrative posts in south-eastern Australia
until March 1943, in New Guinea thereafter until January 1944 when he returned to Australia in the first of three
Quarter Master postings which carried him to war’s end. In July 1945, he was made Commander of the Order of
the British Empire (CBE) for ‘continuous good service and devotion in New Guinea Force’. From 17 September
of that year, he commanded the 33rd Infantry Brigade that took the Japanese surrender of Ambon. In November,
he was back in Australia and held further administrative posts until he went to the retired list on 5 February 1950,
with the honorary rank of Major General.
On 20 January 1966, Steele died in the Repatriation General Hospital, Greenslopes, Queensland, survived by
a spouse, H M Steele, whose status is uncertain.
C L A Abbott, Australia’s Frontier Province, 1950; D McCarthy, South West Pacific Area: First Year, 1959; A Powell, The Shadow’s Edge,
1988; Who’s Who in Australia, 1955; AWM card index 1914–18 and 1939–45 war personnel; Gradation List of Officers, vol 1, March 1946.
J HAYDON, Vol 1.