service dress jacket
Report a Mistake- Object Number 19750344-104
- Event 1914-1919 First World War
- Affiliation --
- Artist / Maker / Manufacturer --
- Date Made 1912-1919
- Place of Use Continent - North America, Country - Canada
- Category Personal artifacts
- Sub-category Clothing, outerwear
- Department Dress and Insignia
- Museum CWM
- Earliest 1912/01/01
- Latest 1919/01/30
- Inscription (label/étiquette): Maj...Steele
- Pattern Name Pattern 1912-h
- Materials Mammal wool, Cotton, Wood, Mammal leather
- Rank Major-General
- Service Component British Army
- Measurements Length 91.3 cm, Width 47.7 cm
- Caption Lieutenant-Colonel Samuel B. Steele (1849-1919)
- Additional Information Commanding Officer, Strathcona's Horse Sam Steele had a long and storied military career. He joined the militia in 1866 during the Fenian Raids and also participated in the Red River Expedition in 1870. The following year he joined the Permanent Force artillery, Canada's first regular army unit. Steele, an outstanding horseman, joined the North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) when that force came into existence in 1873. His career with the police, including command of Steele's Scouts in the Northwest Campaign of 1885, reads like a history of the opening of the Canadian west. At the start of the South African War, he had just finished commanding the NWMP contingent that kept peace in the Yukon during the gold rush of 1898-1899. The commissioner of the NWMP recommended him as "the best man in Canada" to lead a unit in South Africa. Steele took command of Strathcona's Horse, the mounted infantry unit raised and paid for by Lord Strathcona and Mount Royal, Canada's High Commissioner in Great Britain. Strathcona's Horse saw plenty of action and the unit's effectiveness in the often brutal guerrilla phase of the war won the favourable attention of the British high command. After taking the unit back to Canada early in 1901, Steele returned to South Africa that same year to command a division of the South African Constabulary, a position he held until 1906. During the First World War, Steele was too old for front-line service, but commanded Canadian formations in England. Steele was a charismatic, opinionated, hard-living individual who personified the popular image in the Victorian era of the rugged, larger-than-life frontiersman, with all his virtues and vices.