Bates , Edward Percy , d.1896 , merchant Edward Bates & Sons

Edward Bates (d 1896) spent a number of years in India where he established himself as a merchant in Bombay. In 1848 he left this business in charge of an agent, returned to England and opened an office in Liverpool as an importer of Indian produce. He also began a regular service to Bombay with chartered vessels, and in 1850 he started building up a fleet of sailing ships. Trading was soon extended to include first Calcutta and then the Far East and, when the gold rush began, passenger ships sailed direct to Australia and returned via India or South America. In 1870 the firm was renamed Edward Bates and Sons. Edward went to live in Hampshire and the eldest of his four sons, Edward Percy Bates (d 1899), took over the management of the Liverpool office. The next year Edward became an MP and a regular attender at the House; in 1886 he received a baronetcy. In earlier years Bates had bought steamers and converted them into sailing vessels, but from 1870 the partners began adding steamers to their fleet. They continued to acquire sailing ships as well up to 1884, but in 1886 they had a steel-screw steamer built to their own design, which heralded a change of direction to a smaller number of large modern steamships engaged in general tramping. The Bombay office was closed in 1898 and the business there amalgamated with Killick Nixon and Co. When Edward Percy Bates died in 1899 his son Edward Bertram Bates (d 1903) succeeded to the title and the management of the family business. He in turn was succeeded by Percy Elly Bates (1879-1946), who in 1910 joined the board of the Cunard Company. In 1911 he and his two brothers joined the board of Thomas and John Brocklebank and exchanged their largest vessel for half of the Brocklebank family's shares. By 1916 Sir Percy Elly Bates was running the Commercial Services branch of the Ministry of Shipping and his two brothers had gone to the war; as there was no one in the office to manage their ships they sold them to Brocklebank's. This was the end of their shipowning activities, but the partnership of Edward Bates and Sons continued in business as merchants and private bankers. In 1916 Bates and Brocklebank's both moved their offices into the new Cunard Building and in 1919 Cunard bought all the shares in the Brocklebank Line owned by the Brocklebank and Bates families. Sir Percy Bates became deputy chairman of the Cunard Shipping Co in 1922 and was chairman from 1930 until his death in 1946. His brother Denis (1886-1959) became chairman of Brocklebank's when Sir Aubrey Brocklebank died in 1929. The remaining Brocklebank shares (owned by the Anchor Line) were bought by Cunard in 1940.