William Steele (bap. 19 August 1610, Sandbach – 1680) was an English lawyer, judge and politician who sat in the House of Commons in 1654. He was Chief Baron of the Exchequer and Lord Chancellor of Ireland.
Steele was a son of Richard Steele of Sandbach, Cheshire, and his wife Cicely Shaw, and was educated at Caius College, Cambridge.[1]
In 1648 he was chosen to be Recorder of London, and he was one of the four counsel appointed to conduct the case against Charles I in January 1649, but illness prevented him from discharging this duty. However, a few days later he took part in the prosecution of James Hamilton, 1st Duke of Hamilton and other leading Royalists.[2]
Steele was elected MP for the City of London in 1654.[3] He was Chief Baron of the Exchequer in 1655, and was made Lord Chancellor of Ireland in 1656. After the fall of Richard Cromwell, he was one of the five commissioners appointed in 1659 to govern Ireland. At the end of that year, he returned to England, but he refused to sit on the committee of safety to which he had been named.[2]
At the Restoration he obtained the full benefits of the Act of Indemnity, but he thought it advisable to reside for a time in Holland. However, he returned to England before his death, towards the end of 1680.[2]
- ^ "Steele, William (STL627W)". A Cambridge Alumni Database. University of Cambridge.
- ^ a b c One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Steele, William". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 25 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 867.
- ^ Willis, Browne (1750). Notitia Parliamentaria, Part II: A Series or Lists of the Representatives in the several Parliaments held from the Reformation 1541, to the Restoration 1660 ... London. pp. 229–239.
