John Steels Carr was born in Barkston Ash, Yorkshire, and worked as a railway signalman in Pontefract, Yorkshire.

He married Emma Simpson and they had three children, Herbert, Thomas, and John.

His mother was Mary Turpin. John's middle name of Steels was the surname of the man (William Steels) that married Mary's mother, Sarah, several years after Mary was born. Sarah was a spinster when Mary was born. Mary is described as a bastard child in the 1851 census so William was her stepfather and not her father. William must have been a good stepdad for Mary to have named her first son after him.

John built a house at Sunny Bank, Swan Hill Lane, Pontefract. The house passed on his death to his widow Emma and then to his son Herbert and then to his granddaughter Margaret who lives there today (2012).

Herbert was a miner, Thomas a butcher, and John a railway porter, clerk and finally station master. Thomas died at a tragically early age from a heart attack.