Joshua Bates (financier)

Joshua Bates, Boston Public Library

See also: Joshua Bates

for the clergyman and educator and Joshua Hall Bates for the American Civil War general.

Joshua Bates (1788–1864) was an international financier who divided his life between the United States and the United Kingdom.

Bates was born in Commercial St. Weymouth, Massachusetts. A merchant and a banker, in 1828 he became associated with the great house of Baring Brothers & Co. of London, of which he eventually became the senior partner. He became a British citizen in 1842 (not accurate he declided becoming an English Citizen). He was arbitrator of the commission convened in 1853 to settle the claims of American citizens arising from the War of 1812.

_{Bates's only daughter Elizabeth, wife to the Belgian minister Sylvain Van de Weyer. Engraving after a portrait by Thomas Sully}

In 1852 he founded the Boston Public Library by giving $50,000 for that purpose, 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 of which is named after him.

His daughter Elizabeth's granddaughter, Sylvia Brett, was the last Rani of Sarawak.

Publications

• Memorial of Joshua Bates (Boston, 1865)

• This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Gilman, D. C.; Peck, H. T.; Colby, F. M., eds. (1905). New International Encyclopedia (1st ed.). New York: Dodd, Mead. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)