John Bates was born in Bugbrook, Northamption, England in 1805. When he was twenty-two and living in London he was converted to Christ. On December 25, 1829 he was baptized in the Eagle Street Chapel by the pastor and Baptist historian Joseph Ivimey. After serving as a missionary in Ireland, and marrying an Irish lassie, the couple immigrated to New York in 1850 and from there moved to Iowa where he pastored for fourteen years.
The Bates had five children. The first, Mary, who had been born in Ireland, married John McLaurin and moved to India to work among the Teloogoo people. The oldest Bates son joined the Union army and was wounded in the Battle of Vicksburg. After his death, a Southern captain wrote to his parents telling them that their son had “died a happy Christian, maintaining his principles to the last.”
Following Iowa, the Bates family moved to Canada where he once again served as a missionary. While there, one of his daughters married A. V. Timpany and then moved to India as well. John and his wife also had two more sons, both of which entered the ministry, serving in Canada – one as a missionary and the other as the principal at Woodstock college.
John Bates gave of himself, his finances and his children to spread the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. Then he passed into the presence of his Saviour on this day in 1875 at the age of seventy.