DQ Steel - from Lancashire to Upton via Aigburth

Douglas Quintin Steel (known, like all his brothers by just the initials of their forenames), joined Upton Cricket Club around 1904. He was a retired gentleman and former Lancashire County cricketer, and now in the twilight of his career. But for years he still shone with the bat, amassing 4,950 1st XI runs for Upton and when his playing days were over, served the Club well for many years in various capacities.

D Q came from a notable cricketing family, four out of eight brothers all playing county cricket for Lancashire, (D Q himself, Alan Gibson (A G), Harold Banner (H B) and Ernest Eden (E E), of which A G was the most illustrious. The Steel brethren remain one of the finest Lancashire have produced, five of whom played cricket at competitive level. The eldest cricketing brother, Frederick Liddell (F L) played for Liverpool, but not First-Class cricket.

The Crimean War had just come to an end, Queen Victoria was in her 29th year on the throne, the first Oxford v Cambridge University Boat Race had just taken place and Lewis’s Dept Store opened in Liverpool when D Q was born in Liverpool on 19 June 1856. He was the fifth child of Joseph and Margaret Steel. Joseph was a successful Liverpool shipbuilder, ship owner and merchant.

D Q was baptised on 3 November 1856 at St Paul’s Church in Princes Park and the family lived at 2 South Hill Grove, Toxteth. Toxteth at that time was a very affluent suburb of Liverpool and the 1861 Census shows Joseph Steel as a Ship Owner living with his wife, 6 children and four servants. Their neighbours being a Magistrate, another Ship Owner, a Merchant and Ship Broker.

This schooling was at a preparatory school for fifty boys run by the Rev. G F Grundy, M.A and his brother A G was also there. This school was at what was then known as Liscard Castle, Wallasey. The building known as Liscard Castle once stood in the area which is today known as Castle Road and Turret Road, from which the street names are derived. The old mansion was built in 1815 and named Marine Villa. John Ashley Marsden, a Brush Manufacturer purchased the estate in 1836 and named it Liscard Castle. The site is now occupied by a block of old people's flats, appropriately named 'Marsden Court'. In 1871, D Q was at Uppingham School in Rutland where he was a member of the Uppingham School XI for five seasons, 1871 to 1875, the last two as captain. He was coached there by H H Stephenson. (H H Stephenson was the first cricketer to be awarded a hat for taking three wickets in consecutive balls, the origin of the hat-trick.)

On 11 June 1875, D Q entered Trinity Hall, Cambridge where, in 1879 he obtained his B. A. degree. D Q was in the Cambridge cricket eleven for four years-- 1876 to 1879--and batted very well in the first two years. He was awarded Cricket Blues in 1876, 77, 78 & 79, Association Football Blues in 1877 & 78 and a Rugby Blue in 1877 – a truly exceptional all-round sportsman. He was also playing cricket for Lancashire at this time, first playing in 1876 and continuing until 1887.

He appeared in 57 first-class matches as a right handed batsman and wicketkeeper, also bowling right arm slow pace with a round arm action. His only century in first-class cricket was 158 for Cambridge University v. Surrey at the Oval in 1877.

Few public records still exist of matches at that time, but one memorable match that D Q must surely have remembered was played between 3-5 May 1877 at Fenners (the Cambridge University ground), Cambridge University v England. Note that in those days there were only 4 balls per over. Cambridge batted first and scored 126 all out in 98.2 overs, D Q batted at No 5 and top scored with 60 before being bowled by W G Grace. England scored 152 in 84.1 overs and D Q was able to gain his revenge on W G by catching him for a duck. Cambridge scored 190 all out in 120 overs in their second innings with D Q scoring an admirable 31. England thus required 165 to win which they did, but not before losing 6 wickets in 102 overs. Although Cambridge lost the match I am sure D Q must have been very proud of his performance in the game.

His First Class Batting and Bowling averages are as follows:
BATTING:

BOWLING:

This team photograph is the Cambridge University XV prior to their game v Oxford University on 12 December 1877, the year D Q gained his Rugby Blue. D Q is sitting sideways with his back to the post on the right hand side. This Varsity match was played at The Oval, Kennington, London.

As noted earlier, D Q’s father, Joseph was a shipbuilder, ship owner and merchant. One of his ships still exists today and is one of the most photographed of its type. Books have been written about the ship and it is very well documented. It is also commemorated on postage stamps. The Jhelum, a fine 3-masted bark, was built in 1849 in Liverpool by Joseph Steel & Son for their own account. She was mainly used for the guano trade. Altogether she made thirteen voyages from England to Peru, Ecuador or Chile for Steel. In 1858 she was re-rigged as a bark, most probably to sail with a smaller crew.

In 1863 Joseph Steel sold his interest in the ship to John Widdicombe and Charles Bell of Liverpool. Thereafter it was still used in the trade between Liverpool and South America, but on the outward bound voyage mostly loaded with coal. On August 18th, 1870, after a rough passage from Callao round Cape Horn, bound for Dunkirk she put into Port Stanley in leaking condition and the cargo of nitrate got water damage. She was making hourly 14-inch water in her hold. Her crew refused to sail out again in this state, and Captain Beaghole did not receive any money from his owners to repair the ship. A survey was carried out, and she was declared unseaworthy. The ship was sold locally to Dean & Co. and scuttled to serve as a jetty head and workshop area. The Jhelum ended her days as a floating warehouse for wool scuttled at the head of Packe’s Jetty.

She is the only surviving example of this type of vessel left in the world today. Her remains are still there but she is rapidly deteriorating, now owned by the Crown Receiver of Wrecks at Port Stanley. The Falkland Museum & National Trust is trying to raise funds for conservation work without which the hulk cannot be expected to survive for many years.

In 1865, Joseph Steel bought a house in Scotland – Kirkwood near Lockerbie. Kirkwood is a farm of over 600 acres in the heart of South Scotland, a beautiful, unspoilt, lowland area with rolling hills, oak woods and lush pastures and has been the Steel family home since then and now is looked after by father and son Anthony and Charlie (6th generation). Joseph himself must have been a decent cricketer (or was it the prowess of his sons), because around 1870 he constructed a cricket pitch on the field beside Dalton Village. Whilst Kirkwood CC has records dating back to an illustrious period in the 1870s and 1880s there was a hundred year gap in play at Kirkwood. The current pitch was (re)built in 2009 on the same site with no Government grants, no assistance from Cricket authorities (not that any was requested), nor public money of any kind, just hard work mowing and rolling. It is still used for grazing Kirkwood sheep in the winter (just look at it on Google Maps).

Back in the Nineteenth Century the cricket played at Kirkwood was extraordinary and unique. It was village cricket with the earliest recorded game versus Lockerbie in 1874 but Kirkwood boasted the England captain (of 1886)* as a player and he had six brothers(!) three more of whom played first class cricket for Lancashire, Cambridge University and Scotland. This family of 7 Steels lived at Kirkwood, and so occasionally all played together for Kirkwood, although more often only a few of them were available. They also played in a more serious team named “Annandale Borderers” at Kirkwood.

*AG Steel not only captained All England in 1886 to the British team’s only ever whitewash of Australia, but he had played in the 1880 Test at the Oval – the first on British soil – then he played in the 2nd test (1882) at which the All England team lost and the RIP notice mentioning “Ashes” was published in the papers. Co-incidentally AG Steel had helped organise a team that was just about to depart for Australia in September 1882 so he and his team mates were charged by the British media to “recover our Ashes”. This they duly did – AG Steel topping both batting and bowling averages on that tour of 1882/83 – and the name Steel is on the little red urn that was presented to the tourists as a joke trophy. Back in Britain the next year (1884) AG Steel was the first to score a Test Century at Lords so his name heads the Lords Honours board. He was president of the MCC in 1902. The Steel brothers hold another record because no first class game worldwide has ever boasted 5 brothers in the same team and yet 4 Steels played together versus Surrey in 1884.
Joseph Steel died at Kirkwood on 28 Dec 1880.

In 1881 D Q qualified as a solicitor and was in partnership in Liverpool with Messrs Layton, Steel & Springmann. His brother Alan (A G) was to follow him in the practice.
On 1 February 1883, D Q married Maud Elizabeth Collier, daughter of Judge John Francis Collier and his wife Frances. They were married in St Michael in the Hamlet Church, Toxteth. Sometime during the mid 1880’s, D Q and his new wife moved to 6 Riversdale Road, Aigburth.

It was then, and still is, an imposing house. In 1888 new neighbours moved in at the house adjoining (No 7) and named it Battlecrease House. Their new neighbours were James and Florence Maybrick. James was a Liverpool Cotton Merchant. James Maybrick's health deteriorated suddenly on 27 April 1889, and he died fifteen days later at his home in Aigburth. On the night of James Maybrick's death, 11 May 1889, Michael Maybrick sent his brother Edwin next door to fetch D Q Steel to consult him in regard to the various poisons found by the servants. D Q advised him to wrap these items (the chocolate box that contained a packet marked "Poison for Cats", a bottle of vanilla essence, a stained handkerchief bearing Florence's initials, and several other items found in Florence's trunk), put his seal on the package and lock it in the cellar until the police arrived. Michael Maybrick asked D Q to represent the interests of the family and D Q advised that Florence needed to be given independent counsel by another firm. Over the next three years, the Steel brothers (D Q and A G) and their firm, Layton, Steel & Springmann, would represent the Maybrick brothers during the inquest, Florence's trial, at the probate of Maybrick's will and in litigation with the NY Mutual Assurance Company in the suit brought over who could claim the money due from Maybrick's life insurance. The circumstances of his death were deemed suspicious by his brothers and an inquest, held in a local hotel, came to the verdict that arsenic poisoning was the most likely cause, administered by persons unknown.

Suspicion immediately fell on Florence and she was arrested some days later. She stood trial at Liverpool Crown Court and, after lengthy proceedings, the fairness of which was the subject of some debate in later years, she was convicted of murder and sentenced to death. A re-examination of her case resulted in her release in 1904. The "Aigburth Poisoning" case was widely reported in the press on both sides of the Atlantic.
More than a century after his death, James Maybrick was accused of being the notorious serial killer Jack the Ripper, through his own words in a diary, but critics countered that the diary and confession are a hoax. Forensic tests were inconclusive.

The Census record for 5 April 1891 shows D Q living at 6 Riversdale Road, Aigburth with his wife Maud and 3 servants. His occupation is Solicitor.

On 11 June 1892, D Q arrived in Liverpool on his own aboard the Cunard ship “SS Umbria” from New York. When he went there and why is unknown, but by July 1892 D Q was no longer with Layton, Steel and Springmann, with the partnership being dissolved as this notice published in the London Gazette on 5 July 1892 shows.

After the partnership was dissolved D Q must have practised on his own and he was later a QC for the Supreme Court. He is listed as a Solicitor and Notary in Kelly’s Directory of Liverpool in 1894 and he was still practising in April 1895 as shown by the following published in the London Gazette on 5 and 9 April 1895.

There is also evidence in the Commercial Gazette that he was still practising in May and August of 1895. But something must have happened around that time as shown by the following published in the Liverpool Courier on 8 May 1897 and which effectively put an end to D Q’s career as a solicitor.

His Bankruptcy examination was in late October 1895 in Liverpool. In 1896 D Q seems to be in the process of winding up his business following his bankruptcy as a notice in the London Gazette on 1 December 1896 for intended dividends shows he is still at 6 Riversdale Road and still a Solicitor of the Supreme Court.

D Q lived at 6 Riversdale Road until at least 1897 (and possibly longer) but had moved by 1900. It is more than likely that D Q was a member of Liverpool Cricket Club at the time he was living in Aigburth.

The next we hear of D Q is 31 March 1901 when he is shown on the Ireland Census records residing at a house in Rossbeigh, Glanbehy, Co. Kerry in the SW corner of Ireland. He is listed as being a Retired Solicitor and is with his wife Maud and 2 servants. Rossbeigh is often described as “the prettiest all-round village in Ireland”. D Q and his wife were in Ireland until at least 13 May 1902 when their daughter, Veronica May was born in Dublin. She appears to be their only child and died, unmarried, in 1984.

However, by 16 Jun 1902 the family are back in Liverpool and now residing at the old family home of 2 South Hill Grove, Toxteth, as is shown on the baptism records for Veronica May. D Q’s occupation is not listed. By 1904 D Q and his family had moved to Upton to live at “Hogarth” in Church Road. The house still stands today and is
now No 27and converted into flats. Note from the 1899 map how few houses there were in Upton at this time. By the time of the 1911 Census, D Q had engaged himself with a new business. He is listed as a Coal Agent. Gore’s Directory of Liverpool of the same year shows him as a Coal Merchant with offices in Dale Street, Liverpool. This new venture appears to have been short lived as the 1914 and 1923 Directories only show him as a private resident with no commercial activity. Coincidentally, in 1914, W S S Hannay, the founder of Upton CC, was living 3 houses up from D Q in the house then known as “Arnside”.

D Q joined Upton CC in 1904 and in his debut season amassed 817 runs. In 1905 he scored 591 runs and took 38 wickets. In 1906, D Q once again dominated with the bat scoring 628 runs. The same is true for 1907 when he scored 645 runs. 1908 was an unusually quiet season for D Q, as he only scored 256 runs. By 1911, D Q was back in form totalling 549 runs, and in 1912 was even better with 584 runs. These figures amount to 4070 of the 4950 runs he scored as a 1st X1 player for Upton CC.

As documented in the history of Upton CC, the year 1913 was an important milestone, for prior to this date no records or documents exist to prove that the Club was run on a constitutional basis, and all indications are that whilst the Club was run and constituted in a proper and efficient manner, the act of looking after the affairs and funds fell on the shoulders of W S S Hannay. An old minutes book covering the period 1913 to 1918 still survives to this day, and reading between the lines it appears that finance was the stumbling block, and it is reasonable to assume that W S S Hannay was no longer prepared to completely sponsor the Club from his own pocket. On Wednesday 22 April 1913, a meeting was held in the New Room, Greenbank, Upton to discuss the reconstruction of the Club. D Q presided at the meeting, and he pointed out that £115 would be required to cover running costs for the first year - £25 for the painting of the pavilion, £15 for tennis equipment and fixtures, and £75 towards general running expenses. As a result of this meeting, the Club was formally reconstructed, and was to be known as the Upton & District Cricket & Lawn Tennis Club. D Q was appointed as Chairman of the club – a role he fulfilled until 1926.

D Q died at “Hogarth” on 2 December 1933, aged 77, one year after his wife, Maud had died.