Born at Macclesfield, where his father, the Rev John Steele, held the living of Christ Church, and studied at the Bristol Medical School and at the Bristol Royal Infirmary. He became Surgeon to the Royal Infirmary, and lectured on Physiology in the Medical School. He was also Surgeon to the Bristol Hospital for Sick Children, District Medical Officer for Clifton, and Medical Officer to the Law Union and Rock Insurance Companies. He was for a time Secretary, and then Member of Council, of the Bath and Bristol Branch of the British Medical Association, a Brother of the Guild of St Luke, and a Director of Hodder & Co. He first practised at 4 Sutherland Place, and after 1863 at 12 Meridian Place, Clifton; subsequently he moved to Clifton Villa, Kingston Hill. He built up a large practice, both general and as a consultant, retiring from the Infirmary about 1908. He died, after a long illness, at Clifton Villa, on September 20th, 1914, being survived by his widow, a son and four daughters. He was the introducer or inventor of a 'perfected clinical thermometer', of flexible probes, of chair supports for spinal curvature, and of steel spring splints. In 1888 he made the first surgical attempt at correction of oesophageal atresia. **This is an amended version of the original obituary which was printed in volume 1 of Plarr's Lives of the Fellows. Please contact the library if you would like more information lives@rcseng.ac.uk**