Studio portrait of 6416 Sergeant (Sgt) Phillip John Rupert (Rupert) Steele and his brother, 6417 ...

Accession Number AWM2016.587.24
Collection type Photograph
Object type Black & white - Print silver gelatin
Maker Humphreys, Thomas F
Place made Australia: Victoria, Melbourne
Date made September 1915 - November 1915
Conflict First World War, 1914-1918
Copyright

Item copyright: Copyright expired - public domain

Public Domain Mark This item is in the Public Domain

Description

Studio portrait of 6416 Sergeant (Sgt) Phillip John Rupert (Rupert) Steele and his brother, 6417 Bombardier Henry Cyril Augustus (Cyril) Steele, both 4th Field Artillery Brigade (FAB), of Kew, Victoria. Two of the four sons of Philip John Bickett Steele and Johanna Albertina nee Ekman, Rupert and Cyril's eldest brother, Captain Frederick Wilberforce Alexander (Fred) Steele, 4th Battalion Royal Fusiliers, had been killed at the First Ypres Battle on 29 October, 1914. Rupert and Cyril (the latter a VFL Footballer) enlisted together on 20 September 1915 and embarked aboard HMAT Wiltshire (A8) with the 4th FAB on 18 November 1915. Cyril Steele was promoted to Corporal in April 1916 and Rupert Steele was promoted to Lieutenant in October. Lieutenant Rupert Steele died, aged 27, on 8 January 1917, of wounds sustained in France on 15 November the previous year. He is buried in St Sever Cemetery Rouen. Following Rupert's death, Cyril was recalled to Australia from his course at St John’s Wood Cadet School for urgent family reasons. He was aboard ship on the return voyage when his sole surviving brother, 2nd Lt Norman Leslie Steele, Australian Flying Corps (AFC), died while a prisoner of war in Hareira, Palestine on 20 April, 1917 of wounds sustained after his machine crashed behind Turkish lines. H. Cyril Steele died on 18 January 1939 in a boating accident on Victoria's Port Phillip Bay.