Robert Steele was a British scholar and medievalist whose career spanned the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Initially trained in chemistry, he briefly taught the subject at Bedford School before moving to London to work as a freelance journalist. During this period, he became a disciple of William Morris, who deeply influenced both his political views—leading Steele to join the Fabian Society—and his intellectual focus, steering him toward the study of medieval literature.
Steele's early publications reflected this medieval focus. One of his first notable works was Mediaeval lore from Bartholomew Anglicus, a modernized selection of a medieval encyclopedia that featured a preface by Morris. He followed this with The Earliest English Arithmetics, published alongside the Early English Text Society, and Early English Music Printing. His scholarly travels to France, Italy, and Russia also informed his writing, leading to the publication of The Art of the Russian Icon.
Steele's most significant scholarly achievement was his monumental 16-volume edition of Roger Bacon's unpublished works, Opera hactenus inedita Rogeri Bacon, published between 1905 and 1941. His work on Bacon, particularly his edition of the Secretum secretorum, established a modern foundation for English scholarship on the philosopher, though later academics questioned his theory that the text prompted Bacon's turn toward experimentalism. Steele's academic contributions earned him an honorary doctorate from Durham University and a Civil List Pension. His life's work and personal library were tragically destroyed during a German air raid in 1941.
