Gordon Pemberton Steer BA

• Matriculated: 1904

• Born: 24 January 1885

• Died: 26 December 1915

• Regiment: Somerset Light Infantry attached to Wiltshire Regiment

• Grave/Memorial: Wimereux Communal Cemetery: 3.M.3

Family background

b. 24 January 1885 in Warwickshire as the third and youngest son of Edward Pemberton Steer, JP, DL (1851–1927) and Augusta (“Gussie”) Louisa Steer (née Pemberton) (1854–99) (m. 1877). From 1886 onwards the family lived at “Malpas”, near Newport, Monmouthshire (now Gwent).

 

Parents and antecedents

The cordwainer Joseph Chamberlain [I] (1752–1837) was the father of the ironmonger, shoemaker, manufacturer and businessman Joseph Chamberlain [II] (1796–1874) and the grandfather of the more famous Independent Unionist politician Joseph Chamberlain [III] (1836–1914) (cf. Norman Chamberlain). In 1819 Martha Chamberlain (1794–1866), the sister of Joseph Chamberlain [II], married the businessman John Sutton Nettlefold (1792–1866), who, in 1826, founded a water-powered screw-making workshop in Sunbury-on-Thames, Surrey, an operation which he transferred to Baskerville Place, off Broad St, Birmingham, in 1834.

 

 

 

In 1848, John and Martha Nettlefold’s eldest child, Martha Sanderson Nettlefold (1822–1905), married a rising young manufacturer and businessman called Charles Steer [I] (1824–58), the father of Edward Pemberton Steer and thus Steer’s paternal grandfather – a union which also meant that Steer and Norman Chamberlain were distant cousins. After leaving University College School, Charles Steer [I] had got a job with Letts, the stationers, but soon left to set up his own printing business at 80, Long Acre, London WC2; and in the 1851 Census he described himself as a stationer and printer who employed 40 hands – having prospered by the manufacture of playing cards. But in October 1858 he died suddenly, probably as a result of a long-standing ear infection, leaving his widow Martha with five children under nine: Charles [II] (1849–1906); Edward Pemberton (1851–1917); Marion (1853–1949); Ethel (1856–1926); and Arnold (1858–1930).

 

 

 

In 1854 John Sutton Nettlefold bought a licence that permitted him to use an American machine in Britain which was capable of producing more efficient pointed screws. The cost of this innovation was £30,000, but as Joseph Chamberlain [II] provided a third of the sum as an investment, the two brothers-in-law decided to go into business together, to operate under the name of Nettlefold & Chamberlain, and to set up a new factory in Heath Street, Smethwick, Birmingham. They also decided to run the business with the help of two of their sons, and so, in 1854, Joseph Chamberlain [III], aged 18, moved from London to Birmingham to work for his uncle. Before retiring from the family firm in 1874 in order to devote himself full-time to politics in both the City of Birmingham and nationally, Joseph Chamberlain [III], in partnership with his cousin, the mechanical engineer Joseph Nettlefold (1827–81), the fourth child of John Sutton Nettlefold, played a major part in bringing about the commercial success of Nettlefold & Chamberlain. By 1876 the company owned 2,000 machines that were producing half a million screws per week for export all over the world, and in 1880 it became a limited liability company.

So in 1864, at a time when business was starting to boom, Charles Steer [II], the son of Charles Steer [I] and Martha, and Edward Pemberton Steer’s older brother (therefore an uncle of Gordon Pemberton Steer), was able to become an apprentice with good prospects in Nettlefold & Chamberlain’s and Edward Pemberton followed him into the firm in 1865. Both brothers prospered, and in 1885 Edward Pemberton laid out the Rogerstone Steel and Wire Works near Newport, Monmouthshire. In 1886 he became the steelwork’s Managing Director and moved to Malpas from his first marital home in Harborne, Staffordshire.

As the two brothers prospered, they, like the rest of their family, moved from Unitarianism to Anglicanism and, together with the Cadburys and Chamberlains, became two of Birmingham’s leading industrial philanthropists. As a recognized authority on the iron and steel trade, Edward Pemberton joined the Board of Directors of Guest, Keen & Nettlefolds in 1902, when Nettlefolds Ltd amalgamated with Guest, Keen & Co. to become GKN, and in this capacity he would have become acquainted with Edward Pritchard Martin (1844–1910), the father of C.H.G. Martin. Edward Pemberton Steer became the Chairman of the Board of GNK in December 1920 and served in that capacity until May 1927, when ill health forced him to resign. He was also a Director of two collieries (Partridge Jones and John Paton), the Chairman of Directors of Cordes Dos Nail Works, Newport, the Chairman of Directors of Spittles Foundry, Newport, and, for several years, a Director of the Alexandra Docks and Railway Co., Newport, until that firm was absorbed by the Great Western Railway Co. When GKN took control of John Lysaght Co. Ltd in January 1920, Edward Pemberton joined the Board of Lysaght. Although he took little part in public life, he became a Justice of the Peace in 1887, served as High Sheriff of Monmouthshire (now Gwent) in 1909, and was appointed Deputy Lieutenant of that county in 1917. He was Chairman of the Newport Harbour Commission in 1914, of Monmouthshire Territorial Association 1914–20, and of the National Shell Factory at Maesglas 1914–18. A staunch Conservative and churchman, Edward Steer was President of the Monmouthshire branch of the English Church Union and actively associated with the Church of St John the Baptist, Newport.

On 1 October 1914, aged about 62, Edward Pemberton Steer was commissioned Second Lieutenant in the 1^st (Regular) Battalion, the Monmouthshire Regiment, and on 5 September 1915 he was promoted Temporary Captain. But as no medal card exists for him, he was presumably employed in an administrative capacity in England or Wales throughout the war.

He left £84,105 (gross), (approximately £3,365,000 in 2005).

 

 

Siblings and their families

Brother of:

(1) Bridget Lucy (1878–1939), later Donisthorpe after her marriage (1897) to Frederick Russell Donisthorpe (1864–1948); two children;

(2) Edward Pemberton [II] (1881–1938); married (1908) Bernice Bramhall Jones (1885–1953);

(3) Reginald Pemberton (1883–1953); married (1911) Gertrude Esther Johnston (1887–1971), the sister of J.L. Johnston; five children;

(4) Augusta Louise (1887–1959), later Phillips after her marriage (1909) to Frederick Gordon Phillips (1884–1948).

Bridget Lucy married into a wealthy Leicestershire family who had lived in the county for several centuries and made their money from sheep farming and the wool-spinning industry, especially after 1739, when the firm of Donisthorpe & Co. was founded. Their factory at Friars Mills, Leicester, the site of wool-spinning since the mid-thirteenth century, has been called “the cradle of the spinning industry not only of Leicester but of Great Britain”. George Edmund Donisthorpe (1809–75), the great-uncle of Frederick Russell Donisthorpe, was the inventor of the first successful wool-combing machine. The business was registered as a limited company in 1906, with Bridget Lucy’s husband as its chairman: he had entered the company in 1880 and became the Master of the Worshipful Company of Framework Knitters in 1911. From 1916, Bridget Lucy and her family lived in great state at Enderby Hall, a fine sixteenth–seventeenth century mansion in the village of Enderby, south-west of Leicester, which they rented from the Drummond family. At some point, Bridget Lucy became a Roman Catholic and left jewellery and a considerable legacy to the Roman Catholic Church, as well as £250 to the Worshipful Company of Framework Knitters to be used for charitable purposes.

Edward Pemberton [II] married into a county family: he and his wife were very keen on sport and for some years Edward was Master of the Llangibby Hunt.

Reginald Pemberton Steer (brother-in-law of J.L. Johnston), read for a pass degree at Magdalen from 1903 to 1907 (MA 1912). He then studied for the priesthood at Cuddesdon College, near Oxford, was ordained deacon in 1910, and served as the Curate of St Matthew’s, Bethnal Green, in 1910 and as the Curate of All Saints Church, Southampton, from 1910 to 1914. From 1914 to 1930 he was Vicar of Tidenham, in the Forest of Dean, on the western edge of Gloucestershire near Chepstow, Monmouthshire, and simultaneously the Perpetual Curate of Beachley, about three miles south of Tidenham. During his time at Tidenham he was Rural Dean of the South Forest Deanery, Gloucestershire, from 1927 to 1930. From 1930 to 1935 he served as the Vicar of St Mary’s, Selly Oak, Birmingham, a living with a gross income of £452 p.a. and the cure of 8,186 souls; and also as Rural Dean of King’s Norton, Gloucestershire. From 1935 to 1943 he was Vicar of St Laurence’s Church, Stroud, Gloucestershire, and Rural Dean of Bisley, Gloucestershire. He was made an Honorary Canon of Gloucester Cathedral in 1937.

 

Education

Steer attended Arden House Preparatory School, Henley-in-Arden, from 1896 to 1899, and then, following his two brothers, Shrewsbury School from 1899 to 1903, where he was in the first cricket XI (1903). He joined the Army Class for a term in autumn 1903, but after private tuition he matriculated at Magdalen as a Commoner on 18 October 1904, having passed Responsions in September 1904. He passed the First Public Examination in the Trinity and Michaelmas Terms of 1905, and then read for a Pass Degree (Groups E [Military Science], B4 [Law] and B2 [French Language]) over three terms from 1906 to 1907. He took his BA on 5 December 1907. President Warren described him posthumously as “a capital all-round good fellow, liked by all, and very useful to the College”; and in a letter of 27 February 1916 Steer’s father wrote to President Warren in answer to a letter of condolence: “[Your letter] brought me great help & comfort, & I thank you most sincerely for all you say about my dear boy Gordon. He won universal regard & affection wherever he went, & the letters I have received about him make me very proud of him – your own amongst them. In his regiment he was popular as a capable soldier, a good sportsman, & above all a reliable honourable man.”

 

 

“In his regiment he was popular as a capable soldier, a good sportsman, & above all a reliable honourable man.”

 

Military and war service

Steer was commissioned Second Lieutenant (University Commission, Unattached List) on 28 July 1906 and made a probationary Second Lieutenant (University Candidate) in the 2^nd Battalion, the Somerset Light Infantry (Prince Albert’s Own), on 22 February 1908. He was finally confirmed in that rank on 3 February 1909 and joined the 1^st (Regular) Battalion at Portland, Dorset, until it transferred to Malta in March 1909. In September 1909 he was moved to the 2^nd (Regular) Battalion when it came to Malta, and he stayed with that Battalion when, in autumn 1911, it moved to Tientsin, China, and thence, in 1913, to Quetta, India. He was promoted Lieutenant on 4 January 1911 and, together with a few other officers, given accelerated promotion to Captain on 10 June 1915. So while the Battalion remained in Quetta throughout the war, Steer was ordered home on attachment to the Regiment’s 3^rd (Reserve) Battalion and left India on 4 July 1915. On reaching England, he spent a brief time at Plymouth with the 3^rd Battalion, but in October 1915 he disembarked in France on attachment to the 2^nd (Regular) Battalion, the Wiltshire Regiment (the Duke of Edinburgh’s Own), part of 7^th Brigade in the 25^th Division.

The 2^nd Battalion had been in France since 7 November 1914 and had fought at Ypres, Neuve Chapelle, Festubert and Givenchy. On 25 September 1915, the first day of the Battle of Loos (25 September–13 October 1915), when 8,500 British and Indian soldiers were killed in action, it had advanced through Vermelles to the German front and support lines, and thence towards Cité St Élie, keeping to the north of the Hulluch Road. Despite heavy losses, it reached Gun Trench, where it linked up with the 8^th Battalion, the Devonshire Regiment (see F.M. Carver, H.H. Smith and C.T. Mills). The 2^nd Battalion took more heavy losses on 27 September, when it was ordered to attack across open ground, and by the end of the battle it had lost over 400 men killed, wounded and missing, including 14 officers. So when Steer joined the Battalion on 14 October 1915, when it was resting and reorganizing for a month at Les Harisoirs, Mont-Bernenchons, five miles north-west of Béthune, he did so as a badly needed replacement and was attached to ‘B’ Company. From 25 to 27 October the Battalion was in the trenches at Cuinchy, south of the La Bassée–Béthune canal, and in billets at Les Harisoirs and Le Préol, just east of Béthune near Cuinchy, from 30 October to 4 November. From 5 to 10 November it was in the trenches at Givenchy-lès-la-Bassée, just across the east–west canal from Cuinchy, out of the line from 11 to 17 November and back in the same trenches from 17 to 22 November. It returned to them yet again on the night of 24/25 November after two days in billets at Le Quesnoy. At 17.40 hours on 25 November 1915, the Royal Engineers exploded a small mine beneath the German trench immediately in front of the Battalion’s positions, followed later by a much bigger mine that made a large crater in the German line. The Battalion’s bombers rushed forward to capture the position and other men, one of whom was Steer, were sent forward to secure and consolidate it, but during the attack, Steer was badly wounded in the leg by shrapnel and taken to hospital at Wimereux, on the French coast just to the north of Boulogne. In his letter to President Warren of 27 February 1916, Steer’s father described what then occurred:

The first tel[egra]ms & card from the front made light of [the wound], but the surgeons found that it was serious, & I was sent for on Dec[ember] 1^st. I found him in terrible pain, & there was great fear that he would lose his leg, but not for his life. I stayed there for three weeks, during which he did well, the leg was saved & he was quite comfortable, but there was fever due to the septic conditions which[,] however[,] became better, & at his urgent desire & with the Doctors’ approval I returned home just before Christmas. And then there came an access of the fever, & his strength was too much exhausted to withstand it. […] He was good & brave throughout & won the hearts of his Doctors & nurses.

Steer died of these complications, aged 30, on 26 December 1915 in the 14^th General Hospital, Wimereux, a hospital of 200 beds where, during major battles, about 80 officers were delivered per night, of whom perhaps half would be on a ship to England within 24 hours of their arrival. Eva Cicely Fox, an experienced nurse who worked there for three years during the war, would paint a most moving picture of long lines of ambulances arriving at night in order to disgorge their loads of wounded men “who were once smart, well-turned-out, British officers, but who now to all outward appearance, were absolute ruffians, plastered with mud, their coats in rags, and often wearing scrubby beards”.

 

 

Steer is buried in Wimereux Communal Cemetery; Grave 3.M.3, with the inscription: “Requiescat in pace”. Steer’s brother Reginald, who was an ordained priest, was allowed to visit his brother for a time while his father was there, and Edward Steer continued his letter to Warren as follows:

Gordon loved his [brother’s] prayers & those of the chaplain. He always had a serious & deeply religious sense of life & its duties & this was intensified by his experience at the Front altho’ it was only short. He has[,] I know[,] gone to a great reward & he has joined his mother who has been waiting for him for long. So I must not [be]grudge his loss, or rather try not to do so. All is well with him, as with all others who have given themselves for their King & their Country & above all in the Cause of Right & Justice. But it is terrible to be without him – I cannot express my admiration of the Colonel Commanding the Hospital & all his Staff of Surgeons & Sisters. Their skill & their kindness & care for all their patients was a revelation & I am thankful to have experienced it. Col[onel] Goodwin is simply wonderful in every capacity.

Steer is commemorated in the window on the east wall of St Michael’s Church, near Llantarnam, Malpas, Monmouthshire, that depicts Christ in Majesty. The following inscription was added on 28 October 1916, when the window (1869) was dedicated to Steer: “Remember ye in your prayers Gordon Pemberton Steer, Captain Somerset L.I., who was wounded at Givenchy 25 November and died 26 December, 1915, aged 30”. He left £352 19s 9d.

 

 

Bibliography

For the books and archives referred to here in short form, refer to the Slow Dusk Bibliography and Archival Sources.

 

Special acknowledgement:

The Editors would like to thank Mr Maxwell Steer for kindly allowing them to make use of material, especially family photographs, from the wide-ranging, comprehensive and highly informative history of the Steer family that was written in c.1960 by his great-aunt Elsa Steer and is entitled Threads from the Family Tapestry. It is available online at: http://www.msteer.co.uk/biog/4ESteer.html.

 

Printed sources:

[Thomas Herbert Warren], ‘Oxford’s Sacrifice’ [obituary], The Oxford Magazine, 34, no. 9 (28 January 1916), p. 146.

[Anon.], ‘Obituary: Gordon Pemberton Steer’, The Salopian, 35, no. 7, issue 305 (5 February 1916), pp. 126–7; also in [Anon.], Shrewsbury School Roll of Service (Shrewsbury: Wilding and Son, 1921), p. 128.

[Anon.], ‘The Guest, Keen-Lysaght Fusion’, The Times, no. 42,311 (19 January 1920), p. 19.

[Anon.], ‘Mr. Edward Steer’ [obituary], The Times, no. 44,726 (31 October 1927), p. 16.

[Anon.] ‘Bequests to Haunton Church’, Tamworth Herald, no. 3,692 (27 May 1939), p. 8.

Kenrick (1963), pp. 126–33.

Edgar Jones, A History of GKN: The Growth of a Business, 2 vols, I (Innovation and Enterprise;1759–1918), II (The Growth of a Business; 1918–45) (Houndsmills, Basingstoke and London: Macmillan Academic and Professional Ltd, 1987–90). [Also available on line]. Not in the Bodleian.

B.D.M. Smith (rev.), ‘Nettlefold, Joseph Henry (1827–1881)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 40 (2004), pp. 450–1.

 

Archival sources:

MCA: Ms. 876 (III), vol. 3.

MCA: PR 32/C/3/1103–1104 (President Warren’s Wartime Correspondence. Letters relating to G.P. Steer [1916]).

OUA: UR 2/1/55.

WO95/1659.

WO339/7236.

 

On-line sources:

University of Leicester, ‘Donisthorpe & Co. Ltd – the Ellis family and the businesses story’, Special Collections Online: http://cdm16445.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/p16445coll2/id/1058 (accessed 13 February 2018).

Eva Cicely Fox, ‘Life in an Officers’ Hospital’, on-line: http://www.scarletfinders.co.uk/154.html (accessed 13 February 2018).