Sir Samuel Benfield Steele Family Archive

Please note: This collection will close at the Peel library on 28 March 2024 and we anticipate that it will re-open in its new home, at University of Alberta Archives, on 1 October 2024.

This extensive archive, 1870–1978, documents the life and career of Samuel Benfield Steele, noted North West Mounted Police officer and military leader who participated in many of the seminal events and campaigns of the Canadian West and the Yukon. The Steele family papers were acquired from British descendants of the family in 2008 and repatriated to Canada in a special ceremony held at Canada House in London, England, where H.R.H. the Earl of Wessex made a ceremonial presentation to Chancellor (2004–2008) Eric Newell, thereby entrusting the Steele Collection to the University of Alberta Library. The archive treats Steele’s storied career and documents the lives of his wife and children. While the arrangement and description of the fonds is incomplete, a portion of it has been digitized to provide broader access. The Steele Collection fills more than 140 archival boxes containing correspondence, manuscript memoirs, diaries, journals, notebooks, photographs, and published material. The archive is useful for researchers interested in police history, the Klondike Gold Rush, the Boer War of 1899–1902, Canada’s role in WWI, as well as family and social history. For more information, link to the Steele Collection website or finding aid. Related publications include:

Collection Formats: 19th Century, 20th Century, Correspondence, Ephemera, Manuscripts, Photographs -- click to see other collections with this format