Arthur Drummond Steel collection

The collection comprises of correspondence by Steel to the Arctic explorer Sir Ernest Henry Shackleton regarding non polar matters

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.

The correspondence to Shackleton is arranged chronologically

By appointment.

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Descriptions compiled by N. Boneham, Assistant Archivist with assistance from R. Stancombe and reference to Dictionary of National Biography, 1931-1940, Oxford University Press London (1950) and Who was who, 1929-1940, Adam and Charles Black London (1947)

Clive Holland Manuscripts in the Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge, England - a catalogue, Garland Publishing New York and London (1982) ISBN 0824093941.

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