Joshua Bates (financier)

{{Short description|American international financier (1788–1864)}}

{{Infobox person

| name =

| image = Joshua Bates1-crop.jpg

| caption = Daguerreotype of Bates ({{Circa|1850}})

| birth_date = {{birth date|1788|10|10}}

| birth_place = Weymouth, Massachusetts, U.S.

| death_date = {{death date and age|1864|09|24|1788|10|10}}

| death_place =

| parents = Joshua Bates
Tirzah Pratt Bates

| spouse = Lucretia Augusta Sturgis

| children = 2

| relations = Sylvain Van de Weyer (son-in-law)

}}

Joshua Bates (October 10, 1788 – September 24, 1864) was an American international financier who divided his life between the United States and the United Kingdom.

Early life

Bates was born in Commercial St., Weymouth, Massachusetts on October 10, 1788. He was the son of Col. Joshua Bates (1755–1804), who fought in the American Revolutionary War,{{cite book |title=Dictionary of American Biography |date=1937 |publisher=Scribner |page=52 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JjsLAQAAIAAJ |accessdate=19 February 2019 |language=en}} and Tirzah (née Pratt) Bates (1764–1841).{{cite book |title=Revolutionary War Period: Bible, Family & Marriage Records Gleaned from Pension Applications |date=2006 |page=62 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0xRnAAAAMAAJ |accessdate=20 February 2019 |language=en}} After his father's death in 1804, his mother remarried to Ebenezer Hunt (1760–1832) in 1808. His sister, Nancy Bates, was married to Capt. Warren Weston, the mother of abolitionist Maria Weston Chapman (who Bates paid for her education in London).{{cite book |title=History of Weymouth, Massachusetts |date=1923 |publisher=Higginson Book Company |page=729 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v2glAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA729 |accessdate=19 February 2019 |language=en}}

His paternal grandparents were Abraham Bates and Sarah (née Tower) Bates.

Career

Early in his career, he worked for William Gray, owner of Gray's Wharf in Charlestown.Timothy Thompson Sawyer. Old Charlestown: historical, biographical, reminiscent. J.H. West Co., 1902 A merchant and a banker, in 1828 Bates became associated with the great house of Baring Brothers & Co. of London, of which he eventually became the senior partner. He was arbitrator of the commission convened in 1853 to settle the claims of American citizens arising from the War of 1812.

In 1852, he founded the Boston Public Library by giving $50,000 for that purpose ({{Inflation|US|50000|1852|r=0|fmt=eq}}), with the provision that the interest of the money should be expended for books of permanent value, and that the city should make adequate provision for at least 100 readers. He afterward gave 30,000 volumes to the institution, the main hall ("Bates Hall") of which is named after him.

Bates was prominent among expatriate Americans in London in the years before and during the Civil War, including diplomats Charles Francis Adams and Henry Adams, and was active in support of the Union cause.Persuading John Bull: Union and Confederate Propaganda in Britain, 1860–65 By Thomas E. Sebrell, page 110 As a patron of the arts he commissioned canvases from Thomas Cole, including a nostalgic view of Boston,Boston Beheld: Antique Town and Country Views By D. Brenton Simons for his house in Portland Place. The house he built for his daughter and son-in-law, New Lodge, was near Windsor. As the representative of her uncle Leopold I of Belgium, also an uncle of Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Sylvain and his charming American wife were popular with Victoria and her court.

Personal life

Bates married Lucretia Augusta Sturgis (1787–1863);{{cite book |last1=Harden |first1=Edgar F. |title=Routledge Revivals: The Letters and Private Papers of William Makepeace Thackeray, Volume II (1994): A Supplement to Gordon N. Ray, The Letters and Private Papers of William Makepeace Thackeray |date=2016 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=9781315445229 |page=880 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2cZRDQAAQBAJ&pg=PT880 |accessdate=20 February 2019 |language=en}} she was the first cousin of Captain William Sturgis and of Nathaniel Russell Sturgis, both of Boston.{{cite book |last1=Chambers |first1=Lee V. |title=The Weston Sisters: An American Abolitionist Family |date=2014 |publisher=UNC Press Books |isbn=9781469618180 |page=189 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BSnvBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA189 |accessdate=19 February 2019 |language=en}} Together, they were the parents of:{{cite book |title=Tribute of Boston Merchants to the Memory of Joshua Bates: October, 1864 |date=1864 |publisher=J. Wilson and Son |url=https://archive.org/details/tributeofbostonm00bost |accessdate=19 February 2019 |language=en}}

William Rufus Gray Bates (1815–1834), who died young.
Elizabeth Anne Sturgis Bates (1817–1878), who married Belgian Prime Minister Sylvain Van de Weyer.{{cite book |last1=Venn |first1=John |title=Alumni Cantabrigienses: A Biographical List of All Known Students, Graduates and Holders of Office at the University of Cambridge, from the Earliest Times to 1900 |date=2011 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=9781108036160 |page=276 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MWSiYp0-AGEC&pg=PA276 |accessdate=19 February 2019 |language=en}}

Bates died on September 24, 1864. He was buried at Kensal Green Cemetery in the London Borough of Brent in England.

=Descendants=

Through his daughter Elizabeth, he was the grandfather of seven, including Eleanor Van de Weyer, who married Reginald Baliol Brett, 2nd Viscount Esher (their daughter, Sylvia Brett, married Charles Vyner de Windt Brooke, and became the last Rani of Sarawak);{{cite book |last1=Clune |first1=David |last2=Turner |first2=Ken |title=The Governors of New South Wales 1788-2010 |date=2009 |publisher=Federation Press |isbn=9781862877436 |page=373 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rHqv_zt_veQC&pg=PA373 |accessdate=19 February 2019 |language=en}} Alice Emma Sturgis van de Weyer, married the Hon. Charles Brand (4th son of Henry Brand, 1st Viscount Hampden).{{cite book |last1=Burke |first1=Bernard |title=A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain & Ireland |date=1898 |publisher=Harrison & Sons |page=1512 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yEtNAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA1512 |accessdate=19 February 2019 |language=en}}

Image gallery

File:Joshua Bates, Boston Public Library.jpg|Bust of Bates, in Boston Public Library

File:USA Boston Public Library 1 MA.jpg|Bates Hall, McKim building, Boston Public Library, named in Bates' honour

File:Boston Public Library Bates Hall Reading Room & Clocks, From The Government Documents Office (Boston, MA).jpg|Bates Hall, McKim building, Boston Public Library

File:MadameVanderWeyer.JPG|Bates's only daughter Elizabeth, wife to the Belgian minister Sylvain Van de Weyer. Engraving after a portrait by Thomas Sully

Notes

References

{{NIE}}
{{cite EB1911|wstitle=Bates, Joshua|volume=3|page=510}}
{{cite DNB|wstitle=Bates, Joshua|first=Robert|last=Harrison|volume=3}}

Publications

[https://books.google.com/books?id=HnQoAAAAYAAJ Tribute of Boston merchants to the memory of Joshua Bates]: October, 1864.
[https://archive.org/details/amemorialjoshua00coungoog Memorial of Joshua Bates] (Boston, 1865)
[https://books.google.com/books?isbn=073918511X Persuading John Bull: Union and Confederate Propaganda in Britain, 1860–65]