John Steed

The Hon. John Wickham Gascoyne Beresford Steed MC, OM
The Avengers character
Macnee as John Steed with Linda Thorson, 1968
First appearance	"Hot Snow", The Avengers episode 1
Last appearance	"Emily", The New Avengers episode 26 The Avengers (1998 film)
Created by	Sydney Newman (character) Brian Clemens (background details)
Portrayed by	Patrick Macnee (series) Donald Monat (radio) Simon Oates (play) Ralph Fiennes (film) Julian Wadham (audio)
Information
Gender	Male
Occupation	Secret agent
Title	Major
Nationality	English

Major The Hon. John Wickham Gascoyne Beresford Steed MC, OM usually known as John Steed, is a fictional character and the central protagonist on the popular 1960s British spy series The Avengers and its 1970s sequel The New Avengers, played by the late Patrick Macnee in both; by Donald Monat in the South-African radio series adaptation of The Avengers; by Ralph Fiennes in the 1998 film of the same name and by Julian Wadham in the new Big Finish audio series The Avengers – The Lost Episodes.

Steed is a secret agent working for an unnamed branch of British intelligence. He was teamed with a variety of partners, including Dr. David Keel (1961), Venus Smith (1962-1963), Dr. Martin King (1962–1963), Cathy Gale (1962–1964), Emma Peel (1965–1968), Tara King (1968–1969), Lady Diana Forbes-Blakeney (1969), Purdey, and Mike Gambit (both 1976–1977).

Steed was born John Wickham Gascoyne Beresford Steed sometime between 1922 and 1925 (the actor who played him, Patrick Macnee, was born 1922). A of a , Steed attended Eton (like Macnee), where he once got into a fight with the school bully, James Bond, and was eventually expelled (like Macnee). Steed's best friend was Mark Crayford who later followed him into British Intelligence. However Crayford was always secretly jealous of Steed and later defected to the Soviet Union and attempted to destroy Steed and his legacy He was a distinguished veteran of World War II (like Macnee—but here their bios begin to diverge), training with the Coldstream Guards and then transferring to the Intelligence Corps. He spent the early part of his war service posted at RAF Camp 472 Hamelin, which was a jumping-off point for British spies on the continent. He received the Military Cross for single-handedly taking a German machine-gun post. Before leaving the British Army to join "The Ministry" in 1945, Steed achieved the rank of Major.