Arthur Herbert Drummond (Steel) Steel-Maitland MP 1st Bt. (1876 - 1935)

Born 5 Jul 1876 in Naini Tāl, Uttar Pradesh, India

Ancestors

Husband of Mary (Ramsay-Gibson-Maitland) Ramsay-Steel-Maitland — married 10 Jul 1901 in Winchfield, Hampshire, England, United Kingdom

Died 30 Mar 1935 at age 58 in Sussex, England, United Kingdom

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Biography

Wikidata: Item Q959817, en:Wikipedia Labour Secretary and first Chairman of the Conservative Party

Arthur was born in Naini Tal, Bengal, India in 1876. He was the son of Colonel Edward Harris Steel and Emmeline Mary Eden Drummond (daughter of General Henry Drummond).^[1]

As Arthur Steel, he was educated at Rugby and at Balliol College, Oxford, where he was a classical Scholar and Eldon Scholar in 1899. He gained first class honours in classics and law, and became a Fellow of All Souls College in 1900. He was Secretary, Junior Treasurer and President of the Oxford Union Society, and rowed against Cambridge in 1899.

In 1901 he married Mary Ramsay-Gibson-Maitland, daughter of the 3rd Baronet of Clifton, Barnton and Sauchie. While the baronetcy stayed in the male line of the Maitland family, the estate of Sauchie, originally held by the Ramsay family, seems to have passed to Mary and her husband. Arthur changed his name upon marriage to the formal Ramsay-Steel-Maitland, and would be known informally thenceforth as Steel-Maitland.

They had two children:

• Mary Katherine Drummond Ramsay-Steel-Maitland d. 1987
• Arthur James Drummond Ramsay-Steel-Maitland d. 1960 m. Elizabeth Stella Cranswick

Political Career

In 1902 Arthur was appointed an unpaid assistant private secretary to the Chancellor of the Exchequor (finance minister), Charles Ritchie. He stood for election in the constituency of Rugby in 1906, unsuccessfully, before getting elected in Birmingham East in 1910, and re-elected in Birmingham Erdington after a boundary change in 1918. He held that seat until 1929 then switched to Tamworth, which he held until his death, before the 1935 election.

From 1911 to 1916 he was the first Chairman of the Conservative Party. In 1917 he was appointed to the coalition government by Liberal Prime Minister David Lloyd George, in the role of Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies. He later served as Secretary for Overseas Trade. In 1924, under a Conservative Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin, he was given the cabinet position of Minister of Labour, and also sworn into the Privy Council.

In 1917 he was created First Baronet Ramsay-Steel-Maitland of Sauchie in the County of Stirling (in the Baronetage of the UK).

He passed away in 1935 in Sussex.^[2] He is buried in St Ninians Churchyard south of Stirling. The baronetcy passed to his son. His widow passed away in 1944.

Find A Grave: Memorial #147459929

Sources

1. ↑ "India Births and Baptisms, 1786-1947", database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:FGQX-D94 : 5 February 2020), Arthur Herbert Drummond Steel, 1876.
2. ↑ "England and Wales Death Registration Index 1837-2007", database, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QVHV-8PTG : 2 November 2021), Arthur H D Ramsay-Steel-Maitland, 1935.

• https://www.familysearch.org/tree/person/details/GSGB-Z39
• https://www.thepeerage.com/p50820.htm#i508197
• Evening Standard 18 Aug 1928, p.10, col.4, viewed at https://www.newspapers.com/clip/92703282/estate-of-richard-alexander-steel/ (death of brother Richard)