“J. B. Steele dead! What memories the bare announcement recalls ? It takes me beck to a morning in March, 1866, I had a dear sister and brother on board the ship Western Ocean, from Liverpool to Melbourne. She was overdue, and the notice board at the Telegraph Office in Market-street was anxiously watched. At length the good news was telegraphed : ‘Ship Western Ocean, Liverpool to Melbourne, passed Cape Otway.’ Another 24 hours, with good luck, would see the Western Ocean - drop her anchor in Hobson’s Bay. Next morning I was up by times and on Sandridge Town Pier, Sandridge originally -known as Liardet's Beach, and now by the more important name of Port Melbourne. The Western Ocean was just coming up amidst the forest of masts which then crowded Hobson's Bay. Our waterman stated that there would be no use in starting until she had dropped anchor, as no one knew where she might slacken sail. The jolly waterman's idea was to get a good boatload ; he knew pretty well about where the ship would drop her anchor. The Western Ocean dropped her anchor opposite the historical Gellibrand’s Point, where had anchored for many years the prison hulks Success, Lysander, etc. After half an hour’s pull and sail we reached the ship, end climbing up her tall sides, stood upon the poop deck to welcome my relatives. After greeting I noticed a lady and gentleman, the former leaning on the arm of the latter, the gentleman a splendid specimen of manhood, the lady somewhat short and stout, but they made a charming couple. I inquired who they were. My brother said, ‘Mr. Steele and his wife,’ who had come out to support G. V. Brooke. Alas poor Brooke had gone down in the London some weeks before, in Biscay's Bay. Mr. Steele told me in after years that the first they heard of Brooke's death was from the pilot when he boarded the Western Ocean, ‘off the Otway.’ That was my first introduction to J. B. Steele, and off and on he was my friend since then. His roaming life kept us apart for many years, but on his permanently taking up his residence near Sydney, I had constant visits from him.
John Blennerhassett— Steele was a nom-de-theatre — came of a good family. He was the son of John Blennerhassett, Esquire, of 27 Lower Mount-street, Dublin (the same street in which John Francis Vallor, L.L.D., poet, etc., father of Mr. Waller of the Sydney Harbor Trust, lived). In that street the future actor was bom in 1832. The fact that Steele's father lived in such a neighborhood as Mount-street, Merrion Square, is proof enough of the position of the family. Steele's schooling was of the best. I am not sure that he did not graduate at ‘Old Trinity’; he was too modest a man to boast of his attainments; he was every inch the gentleman. I am not acquainted with his reasons for taking to the stage, when, from his family influence, any of the learned professions was open to him. I fancy that his splendid stage presence, perfect deportment, and grand elocution decided him. Dublin has always been the home of private theatricals, and all the stage-struck youths of the Irish metropolis could always find a means of fretting and strutting their little hour. If belonging to the ‘upper ten’. the Queen’s, the Royal, or the private ball-rooms readily furnished the opportunity. If of the middle-class, the old Fishamble-street theatre, known in its ‘glory days’ as ‘Daly’s,’ was the scene of the amateur ‘Richards,’ ‘Othello,’ and ‘Belphegor’ efforts. It was in this Fishamble-street theatre that the favourite Australian comedian, J . R. Greville, made his amateur debut, end more than one thespian who has made a name on the stage owns that dingy old theatre as the cradle of his ambition.
I do not know where J. B. Steele made the first appearance as a professional. I believe, like Barry Sullivan, that it was in Cork. When Brooke returned from Australia be met Steele and his wife at Brighton. He was playing with Brooke in Birmingham when Brooke's resolution to return to Australia was made. Whether the steamship London had a full passenger list, or Mr. Coppin, in a fit of economy, chose a sailing ship as the cheaper method of transporting his ‘new people’ to Melbourne, I know not, but I do know that the careful manager insured the lives of Mr. and Mrs. Steele for the voyage.
Not having the ‘star’ Brooke to support, Mr. and Mrs. Steele played a general engagement at the old Royal, and (afterwards they attached themselves to various stock companies. They spent a number of years in New Zealand in management with Mr. Keogh, husband of Marion Willis, a gentleman who once boasted of having studied under G. V. Brooke. He did study under Brooke, a long way ; he carried on a banner generally, and made the announcement, ‘The carriage waits’. Astonishing what a lot of mediocre people studied under Brooke when the great actor was unable to contradict their assertions. Brooke would give kindly advice, but never was a tutor. After many ups and downs, chiefly downs, Mr. J. B. Steele reached Sydney about the year 1891. Mrs. Steele had gone to England (poor Steele's Bohemiansm had become intolerable). I met him on many occasions at Poverty Point, when he told me that he was absolutely destitute. I urged him to retire to Liverpool under the fostering care of Dr. J. A. Beattie, who has a strong affection, for exponents of the drama. At length he consented. I saw Dr. Paton, who kindly gave me an order for his admission to Liverpool. He promised he would go next day, but his anxiety to see a friend detained him, and on the third day the late Sam Poole brought him to Critchett Walker, who endorsed the belated order to Parramatta, and to Parramatta Steele went. Let no one think that Steele was purely ‘pauper on the State.’ The Freemasons, in which fraternity he had held high office, took care of that. In Parramatta he had two rooms at his disposal, ranking as & sort of petty officer, with a small weekly wage. This he drew every three months, when he came to Sydney, and, as he once humorously said, could ‘act the gentleman for five, minutes.’ After an absence of some time from Sydney I knocked up against Steele one morning in King-street, near the Sportsman office. He had been inquiring for me. ‘You are the very man I was looking for. Come with me.’ The best hotel in Sydney alone would suit his generosity— no 3d. bar and counter lunch! To the Metropole, and in the quiet of the lounge we chatted over old times, of failures and successes, of good undone, of resolutions vain, etc., until it was time for him to return to his home.
Some months ago a friend of many years standing received a note from Steele that he was removing to Liverpool to undergo on operation for cancer of the tongue. On Friday, 11th November, that friend and myself journeyed to Liverpool, to the old institution, as I thought, the old smelfull Institution of the long ago but we were disagreeably disappointed. The cancer patients are housed in two new pavilions on the eastern side of the railway line,—some distance from the buildings of the Macquarie era. Fine, light, airy, roomy wards, cheerful to a degree, notwithstanding the melancholy of their Surroundings. Well-kept lawns and flower beds, a mass of color; relieved the eye is all directions, and one was almost led to paraphrase Thomas Davis, and say, ‘Oh, ‘twere good to the grave to go, if one were sure to be buried so.’ It made one almost wish to be permitted to die amidst such surroundings. I have bad some severe shocks in my time, but the shock I received on that Friday I suffer from yet. I expected to meet Steele as I had met him some months before, still upright, stalwart, but, alas 1 though the form was there, the Steele of my younger days was gone. The fine manly voice that had enthralled audiences and had charmed parties, was gonet only a guttural sounding of words difficult to catch remained. We chatted as best we could, he asking after old friends, amongst whom he specially mentioned Launcelot B— who, I think, rather ungenerously treats Steele's memory in a recent evening paper. We left him, promising to see him again ; but within a week he had gone to ‘that bourne from whence no traveller returns.’ On Saturday he was buried with Masonic honors in the new cemetery at Liverpool. May the daisies blossom on his grave, for a kinder spirit or more generous and disinterested man than John Blennerhassett Steele did not exist. He was 72 years of age.
About a year ago a well known freelance journalist, who has had a good deal to do with ‘sundry shows’ in his time, conveyed to the ‘Sydney Morning Herald’ the news that two old time, actors, John B. Steele and Sam Poole, ; had shuffled off this mortal coil, the one at Parramatta Asylum, and the other at the Sydney Hospital. The freelance only anticipated Father Time by a few months ; but both gentlemen repudiated their presumed demise and objected to premature burial. Sam Poole, I believe, visited the ‘Herald' office and threatened to perform a breakdown on the body of the staid and solemn business manager if ample apologies were not tendered for the gruesome announcement, Sam dealt more tenderly with the ‘Herald’ than did a certain up-country gentleman some years ago, about whom the paper published a column of eulogistic obituary, only to find that the old gentleman was ‘hale and hearty, thank you!’ The old gentleman's family had been inundated with telegrams of condolence, which it cost the worthy defunct £10 to reply to, and which £10 he claimed from the Herald and got.
Mr. Steele took his 'death' more philosophically. He came to Sydney, went to Brandt's studio, and had his photo taken as an evidence that he was still in the land of the living. A copy of that photograph was presented to me, and on Friday, before I left him, Mr. Steele wrote his name, with date, across it— the last signature he made. A recent writer, who knew Mr. Steele well, thus describes him : — He had a good figure, a good face, and a good voice endowments which, when united with even a fair amount of brains, have carried many a man farther than they carried the late Mr. Steele. With the natural talent and cultivated intelligence which he really possessed, and the personal qualifications just mentioned, Mr. Steele ought certainly to have won a higher place than ever he reached in relation with his art. He dropped somehow out of the regular running at a period of life, when, in the ordinary course, he should still have had plenty of 'go' an him. Before he quitted - the stage there were, through whatever cause, indications of failing power. His enunciation had become painfully slow and measured. That was apparent when, he played Marc Antony to the Cleopatra of the American actress. Miss Louise Pomeroy, in a revival of the tragedy at the Sydney Theatre Royal in the early eighties. What a host of actors and actresses who were then familiar to the Australian public have preceded J. B. Steele on the journey from which there is no return
Of Mr. Steele—L. B., of whom the former spoke so kindly at my interview with him, says: — ‘My first introduction to J. B. Steele was in 1870 at the old Theatre Royal, Melbourne (which was shortly afterwards destroyed by fire). We were playing ‘Richard III.,’ it being the opening night of Henry Talbot, the Scotch tragedian, who appeared in the name part. The cast on that occasion comprised names that adorned the playbills of the times— actresses and actors who had starred ond and were still stars, working together in ‘stock,’ There were Harwood, (Greville, Stewart, Ireland, Appleton, Sefton, Power, Steele, and Rogers. Coppin was away in England at the time; I cannot from memory be quite sure of the actresses. There are not many ladies in the city, but Adelaide Bowering (sic) (Mrs. J. B. Steele) was in the cast, also Mrs. Walter Hill (Queen Anne). You can count the survivors of the performance on the fingers of one hand, and have a finger or two to spare. I think Mrs. Walter Hill is the only one left of the ladies. J. B. Steele played Richmond, and my first sight of him made a great impression on me. When he made his entrance clad in a magnificent suit of armor. He was the in the prime of life. He was a fine-looking man, handsomely featured, well built, with a stately demeanor and carriage. He walked the stage with confidence and grace. No wonder that his stage presence begat admiration on the part of his audience, and created such a lasting impression that many defects were concealed thereby. Pity L.B. did not leave his obituary notice at that, without a further humiliating reference to the poorhouse. J. B. Steele played odd engagements through the country, till finally evil days came upon him and he found bis way (in plain English) to the workhouse — the Parramatta Asylum. He could not be induced to come out and face the world again like poor old Joe Raynor, he was content. He visited Sydney for a day or two at intervals, and then the instinct of the man came to the front. In his palmy days he was always faultlessly dressed, and to the last I have no doubt he was ‘natty.’ On his visits to Sydney he donned his best, and no one would have taken the neat, frock-coated, silk-hatted and gloved erect old gentleman, for an inmate of the asylum for the aged and indigent.
Like many another, L.B. is in error as to Mr. Steele's occupancy of his room in the workhouse. As everybody knows, J. B. Steele was high up in Masonry, was a visitor to all the lodges in the neighborhood of Parramatta, and a welcome visitor at that : be was the life and soul of their convivial meetings, and the Masons, with a generosity for which -they are proverbial, looked after Mr. Steele's interests, and I question if his maintenance cost the State very much. His funeral cost the State nothing ; the Masonic body saw that John B. Steele did not receive a ‘work-house’ or pauper’s funeral. While he was an Inmate of the Cancer Hospital at Liverpool— not the asylum or ‘work-house’ — the Masons saw that he had the daily newspapers and any other literature he might require. And when I asked a very courteous attendant if Mr. Steele needed anything, the reply was; ‘He can have anything, he needs, in fact his friends anticipate his every want.’ At the office in the old building, wither we were escorted to leave our names and addresses so that we might he advised, ‘when the time came,’ the matron, a kindly lady, and the man in charge of the gate both bore witness that Mr. Steele was ‘a good patient’ — that is, that he gave, no trouble, took his fate with philosophical indifference, was duly-prepared for the end, and would he pleased when his name was called. And when his name was ‘called,’ John Blennerhassett Steele was found ready and not unwilling. Peace to his ashes”
— Annals of the Turf and other pastimes, Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW : 1900 - 1954), Wednesday 30 November 1904, page 3
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