GD MEMBER EMILY KATHARINE, KATHERINE OR CATHERINE BATES:

GD MEMBER EMILY KATHARINE, KATHERINE OR CATHERINE BATES:

File Two: LIFE BY DATES from 1856 to the mid-1870s

STARTING WITH: WHAT’S SHE CALLED?

I don’t really know! There was confusion about what she was going to be called right from the start – see the previous file in this group for her name being registered twice; and mix-ups on the census. Kat only adds to it in her own writings: in the same volume (Seen and Unseen 1907) she has one woman friend call her Emmie (p54) and another call her Kat (p89). In Our Living Dead (1917) a third woman friend calls her Katharine (p29). How her name appears on the covers of her books isn’t much help either, at least with the earlier ones – it goes through a couple of formats, including spelling Katharine Catherine, before settling down to E Katharine Bates in the 1890s.

As I’m not a spiritualist, it’s a bit too late to ask her! Though the evidence is contradictory, it’s slightly in favour of her being called Katharine rather than Emily. I’m going to go with ‘Kat’.

PROBLEMS WITH SOURCES WRITTEN BY KAT HERSELF

One reviewer described Seen and Unseen as an autobiography, but it isn’t one really. It’s based on her spiritual experiences and the people she had met through spiritualism. References to her life outside spiritualism – especially her early life – are mentioned in a few words if at all and usually without specific dates. Her two travel books suffer from the same problem. In them, Kat does mention a lot of places she had already visited – though again without dates – but both are written as guides for travellers who might choose to follow the same route, and concentrate on the pleasures and pains of Kat’s current travels, rather than journeys in the past.

And then there are the people. Especially in Seen and Unseen Kat makes no bones about mixing up real names with pseudonyms and it’s not always obvious which is which! So with most of the people she meets or knew before, I’ve no real idea who it is I should be researching.

It’s clear that some of her novels are set in places Kat had visited; but under the circumstances I’ve thought it better not to assume that the incidents that occur in them actually happened to Kat.

Kat’s a bit of a trickster!

GETTING TO THE START – SHORT FORMS FOR THE SOURCES

GR1; GR2 A Year in the Great Republic, Kat’s account of her travels in Canada and the US.

She is named on the original cover as E Catherine Bates. 2 volumes, London:

Ward and Downey 1887.

KSS Kaleidoscope: Shifting Scenes from East to West. Kat’s account of her time in Australasia, the Far East and Alaska. She’s named on the original cover as E

Katharine Bates. London: Ward and Downey of Covent Garden 1889.

S/U Seen and Unseen London: Greening and Co 1907; New York: Dodge Publishing Company 1908.

The page numbers are from my own copy, printed 2016 by Filiquarian Publishing Llc, see www.Qontro.com

Do/Dead Do the Dead Depart? I can’t say which name appeared on the front cover of the

British edition as I can’t find any copies of it. E Katharine Bates is the name on

the title page of the American edition published New York: Dodge Publishing

Company 1908. My page numbers are from a modern reprint by

www.forgottenbooks.com of the US edition.

P/Realm The Psychic Realm on whose front cover Kat’sname is given as E Katharine Bates. London: Greening and Co 1910.

PHFL Psychic Hints of a Former Life by E Katharine Bates. London: Theosophical

Publishing Society of 161 New Bond Street. 1912.

Cope The Coping Stone: Its True Significance by E Katharine Bates. London: Greening and Co Ltd 1912. The dates given are very vague in this one.

OLD Our Living Dead: Some Talks with Unknown Friends by E Katharine Bates with a

Preface by Alfred E Turner. London: Kegan Paul Trench Trubner and Co Ltd

1917

C/Dawn Children of the Dawn by E Katharine Bates (sic). London: Kegan Paul Trench Trubner and Co. NewYork: E P Dutton and Co 1920. Kat’s last published work.

GETTING TO THE START – LAYOUT

As with my other great life-by-dates – Isabel de Steiger – what was happening will be in italics with the sources and my comments in Times New Roman.

GETTING TO THE START OF THIS FILE – WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE

Church of England clergyman Rev John Ellison Bates married Ellen Susan or Susanna Carleton at Ambleside in January 1836. They spent 1836 to 1844 in the Liverpool area where Rev Bates was curate at St Bride’s and then vicar of Christ Church Crosby. In 1844 Rev Bates was made perpetual curate of the new parish of Hougham, between Dover and Folkestone, so the family moved there.

John Ellison and Ellen had five children: Henry Stratton (born 1837); Charles Ellison (born 1839); Mary Ellen (1840-?43); John Sidney (born 1844); and Kat the GD member, born October 1846. Ellen Susan died in April 1848 and John Ellison died in February 1856 after several years of increasingly serious illness. Rev Bates had made a Will in 1848.

Sources and further information are in the file on Kat’s family background.

FEBRUARY 1856

After several years of ill-health, Rev James Ellison Bates died.

Comments by Sally Davis: TB seems a likely candidate for Rev Bates’ illness. Kat later feared on several occasions that she had contracted it herself. Kat says that during his last few years, she got used to not seeing her father for days at a time.

Kat’s godmother was in the house during Rev Bates’ last illness; and so was one of her brothers – probably Henry, as the eldest – but they took a decision not to tell Kat (who was only nine) that her father was dying. Her nurse was by her father’s bedside when he died, and was the person who told Kat he was dead; though in Seen and Unseen Kat claimed she already knew, having dreamed he was dead for the three previous nights.

Just noting here that I don’t know who Kat’s god-mother was: she doesn’t name her in any of her books.

Sources: freebmd. Full text of Will of John Ellison Bates, Prerogatory Court of Canterbury Wills 1384-1858. I had trouble reading it and couldn’t see a reference to the exact date of Rev Bates’ death.

Kat’s own account of her father’s death, from many years afterwards: S/U p11. There was a gap in Kat’s life where the relationship with her father (however formal) would have been; a larger gap than the one created by her lost her mother at 18 months. I think the gap was the basis of Kat’s need to believe in life after death.

1856-1863

Kat’s surviving uncle, Henry William Bates, was her legal guardian.

Source: GR1 p211.

Comment by Sally Davis: there’s more on the financial and legal affairs of Kat and her brothers in the first file; with some information on the two trustees and two executors Rev Bates appointed to administer his Will. The Will left Kat £5000; a tidy sum in the 1850s. It was to be held in the trust fund until one of two conditions was fulfilled: that she reached the age of 25; or (if this happened before) she married with her trustees’ consent. Though Kat joked in 1888 about not having “a few hundred pounds to spare”, she had sufficient annual income to live comfortably. What’s not so clear – because she never writes about it – is whether she administered her £5000 herself after her 25^th birthday or whether trustees continued to do so.

Sources:

I didn’t find very many for Henry William Bates, who seems to have been called ‘william’.

A New Gazetteer or Topographic Dictionary of the British Isles 1852 by James A Sharp: p552 entry for Denton Sussex has Henry William Bates as patron of the living of St Leonard’s church Denton.

I think I found him on the 1851 census, as a lodger at 17 St Alban’s Street, St James’s Square: he was a bachelor, a captain of voluntary militia and a magistrate. I couldn’t find him on the census in 1861.

Via ancestry to Will of John Ellison Bates at the Prerogative Court of Canterbury Wills 1384-1858.

Website measuringworth.com calculates that £5000 in 1873 terms was worth £406,600 in modern-equivalent purchasing power. Assuming Kate got income from all of it, at 5% interest, her annual income would be around £250; however, evidence from GR1 and GR2 suggests it was higher than that.

Source for Henry William Bates as Kat’s guardian: GR1 p211. She says that Rev Bates had not got on with his eldest brother, Henry William Bates being “a thorough man of the world”.

Kat’s 1888 comment: KSS p140. She was in Japan, looking at some ceramics, at the time.

AFTER 1856

The Bates children didn’t live as one family again.

Comment by Sally Davis:

All Kat’s brothers went into the army though only Charles seems to have gone willingly – Henry and John Sidney retired from active service quite early in their lives. Both Henry and Charles had already got their commissions by the time Rev Bates died.

HENRY STRATTON BATES joined the 65^th Foot Regiment, known as the 2^nd (North Riding) Yorkshire Regiment, in August 1854. It had been sent to Australia in 1846 and moved on to New Zealand in 1855. Though he was at home when his father died, Henry went to join his regiment soon after. He fought in the Taranaki War of 1860-61 and was on General Cameron’s staff from 1861 to 1863. He learned several Maori languages and became the General’s official interpreter.

The death of his uncle, Henry William Bates, in 1863, and his inheritance of the estate at Denton in Sussex, caused him to return to England in 1864. Though Henry never lived at Denton as far as I can see, income from the estate enabled him to move to a more fashionable Hussar regiment stationed at Aldershot. He was never on active service after 1866, the year he made a wealthy marriage, to Frances Henrietta, daughter of Sir John Rivett-Carnac, 2^nd Baronet.

CHARLES ELLISON BATES was not at home when Rev Bates died. He was probably on his way to India as a 2^nd Lieutenant with the East India Company’s regiment the 36^th Native Infantry. He had been in India a few months when the Mutiny/First War of Independence broke out. He was wounded when mutiny broke out at Jullunder in June 1857. In the reorganisation of the military after the British Government took over the ruling of India, he joined the Bengal Staff Corps and changed regiments several times. In the next two decades he took part in a number of campaigns in India and elsewhere. He fought at Bundlekund in 1859. He went with the military expedition to China in 1860. He was in Bhutan in 1865. After a short time stationed at Meerut he went to Abyssinia in 1868. He was stationed in Myanmar in 1870-71 but spent a large part of that time on leave, in the US and in England where he met up with Kat.

During the 1870s Charles Bates was stationed at Lahore. Amongst his tasks there was helping to compile a gazetteer of Kashmir and the surrounding area. This was originally for military use only, but since becoming more widely available it has been an important resource for mountaineers and anthropologists. Charles also found time to edit a history of Khokand. In 1877 he was appointed military secretary to Sir Robert Eyles Egerton, Lieutenant-Governor of the Punjab. He was on his way to the 2^nd Afghan War with the 32^nd Sikh Pioneers in 1878 when he was felled by a severe stroke that ended his career.

JOHN SIDNEY BATES

John Sidney joined the 4^th Regiment of Dragoon Guards – known as the Royal Irish – in 1862. He spent his entire career in that regiment, whose headquarters was at Dundalk. He did not take part in any military campaigns and did not see any serious fighting. He left the army altogether in October 1881 having reached the rank of major.

Sources for Henry Stratton Bates:

London Gazette issue of 18 August 1854 p2565 list of new military commissions.

Hart’s Annual Army List 1855 p217 entry for 65^th Regiment of Foot .

Rather than wikipedia I suggest interested readers go to the New Zealand DNB at //teara.govt.nz for its accounts of General Thomas Simson Pratt and General Duncan Alexander Cameron, both of whom had the upward progress of their careers halted by their failure to overcome the Maoris. There are good accounts on their pages of the infighting between the military and civilian authorities that made outright victory impossible. I imagine Henry Bates was glad to get away!

At //digitalnzgeoparser.tripodtravel.co.nz there are several photographs with Henry Bates in them. In one taken by Dr William Temple, probably in 1861, Henry is posing with several other officers and a young Maori woman known by the British as Annie. In another, Henry is seen with the Taupo chief Pohipe and his entourage. Also on this website is a copy of a drawing Henry did, probably in 1859, of the military camp at Scinde Island, Napier.

Website www.queensredoubt.co.nz details the history of Queen’s Redoubt, headquarters of General Cameron during the Maori wars of July-November 1863. Henry’s drawing of the Redoubt is now in the National Library of New Zealand; he was stationed there during July and August 1863.

KSS p96.

London Gazette issue of 19 July 1864 p3622: Henry Bates’ promotion to Captain as of 19 July 1864.

Change of regiment:

Edinburgh Gazette Fri 25 Aug 1865 p1045 Captaint Henry S Bates joined the 8^th Hussars on 22 August 1865.

His last active posting:

New Army List 1866 p47 8^th Regiment of Hussars, known as the King’s Royal Irish.

Henry’s wife and her family:

Gentleman’s Magazine 1866 issue of March [1866] p420 marriage notices: on 18 January [1866] at Milford Hants, Henry Stratton Bates to Frances Henrietta, daughter of Sir John Rivett-Carnac Baronet of Hordle Cliff Hants.

Via freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~usher/ushersct/11114.htm: very brief biographical information on Frances Henrietta.

Peerage and Baronetage of the British Empire 1869 by Edmund Lodge, Innes etc p674 entry for baronetcy of John Rivett-Carnac.

Website www.mysteriousbritain.co.uk entry for Boston House Chiswick Square Chiswick says that Henry and Frances Henrietta Bates lived there from 1869 to 1889.

Sources for Charles Ellison Bates:

United Service Magazine 1863 p147.

New Army List 1864 p378.

New Army List 1865 p378, still a Lieutenant.

Hart’s Army List 1869 p501 now a Captain.

Gazetteer of Kashmir and the Adjacent Districts by Captain Charles Ellison Bates of the Bengal Staff Corps and Charles Metcalfe MacGregor. Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing. 1873 and many subsequent editions.

Charles as working for Sir Robert Egerton: S/U p16.

New Annual Army List 1878 p91 as a major from September 1872.

A History of Khokand from the Commencement of Russian Intercourse until the Final Subjugation of the Country by that Power. Editor, Major Charles Ellison Bates. Lahore: Government Civil Secretariat Press. 1878

Robert Eyles Egerton (1827-1912): a very brief wikipedia page; and www.thepeerage.com gives the dates he served as the Punjab’s lieutenant-governor.

New Annual Army List 1881 p93.

Gentleman’s Magazine volume 301 July-December 1906. Issue of 1 July 1906 p446: obituary of Colonel Charles Ellison Bates.

Imperial and Asiatic Quarterly Review 3^rd Series Volume XXIII 45 and 45, January-April 1907. Published Woking: The Oriental Institute: p223 a very short obituary.

Times 29 September 1906 p9: obituary.

Sources for John Sidney Bates:

Hart’s Annual Army List 1863 p33 entry for the 4^th (Royal Irish) Regiment of Dragoon Guards.

London Gazette 4 July 1865 p3355: his promotion to lieutenant.

Colburn’s United Service Magazine 1870 p313: announcement of his promotion to captain, by purchase.

New Army List 1875 p139: John Sidney making his way up the list of captains.

Hart’s New Army List 1877 p39: still in the same regiment.

London Gazette 30 Sep 1881 p4893: announcement of his retirement from the army.

KAT AFTER 1856

Comment by Sally Davis:

Though Henry William Bates was the guardian of his brother’s children, he didn’t take daily care of any of them and they were never members of his household. After their father’s death (I don’t know how soon after) Kat and John Sidney were sent away to school. Kat says that the school her uncle chose for her was a “fashionable” one, in London. It was probably the one she was in on the day of the 1861 census: the school at 16 Upper Hamilton Terrace, St John’s Wood run by Irishwoman Mrs Grace Tyndall and her daughters. “Emily” Bates was one of 15 pupils in the household on census day; all girls of course; all around Kat’s age; most born abroad; and including three sets of sisters. What exactly Kat was taught there is only hinted at in Kat’s later writings but there were several positive outcomes. She could make polite conversation in French and German later in her life; and she had enough confidence in her intellectual ability to undertake a six-month college course in chemistry, including practical work. She had music lessons during her childhood though not necessarily at school and she may not have been very good at it: as an adult she enjoyed church music at least, and could appreciate good playing, but she never mentions playing any instrument herself.

Kat says that her school holidays were spent with her godfather’s family. I suppose John Sidney did the same until he left school, though Kat doesn’t specifically say so. Kat referred to her godfather and his family using one of her false names, and the only information she gave about him was that he was the archdeacon of a northern diocese; leaving me plenty of scope for getting the wrong man. I cautiously suggest that he might have been Rev Isaac Wood, vicar of Middlewich in Cheshire and archdeacon of Chester from 1847 until his death in 1865. He lived at Newton Hall in Middlewich. His wife Mary was a relation of the philosopher Edmund Burke. Isaac and Mary Wood had a large family, though their children were all rather older than Kat. Mary Wood is one of my very tentative candidates for being Kat’s godmother.

In one book Kat mentions having known Worcestershire since her childhood. This will have been through visits to her much older first cousin Ellen Bearcroft (née Vernon), who was the daughter of Kat’s mother’s sister; see my file on Kat’s family background for more on the Vernons.

John Sidney Bates was still at school on census day 1861. He was one of 22 boys aged between 15 and 17 at the school in Eltham run by Thomas Hopkirk and his wife. The following year, he joined the army and went to Ireland.

Sources:

1861 census.

For music lessons and practice, not necessarily at school: Do/Dead p187.

For the fashionable status of Kat’s school: S/U p11 and OLD p28.

For her abilities with German: GR1 p221 and OLD p98 though here she says that she lived in Germany for several years so she may have learned the language there, not at school. In Cope pp13-14 Kat mentions long stays with an English family living in Dresden. Conversing in French: S/U p92; and for Psychical Science and Christianity (published 1909) she read several recent books in French on spiritualism and psychology.

The chemistry lessons: P/Realm pp119-120; apparently 16 years before the book was being written.

The only reference to Mrs Tyndall’s school that I could find on the web was in a wiki page on Dame Mary Dacomb Scharlieb (1845-1930) physician and lecturer in medicine at Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital. As Mary Dacomb Bird she was at Mrs Tyndall’s school for a time; though she was not on the list of pupils there on 1861 census day.

Rev Isaac Wood:

Kat’s reference to her godfather’s job: S/U p11.

Wikipedia’s list of archdeacons of Chester.

Burke’s Genealogic and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of GB and Ireland volume 2 p372 Wood of Newton Hall Middlewich Cheshire. There are several Isaac Woods in the family.

Transactions of the Historic Society of Lancashire and Cheshire volumes 7-8 1855 pxxi in list of members.

Journal of the Architectural, Archaeological and Historic Society for the County and City of Chester... volume 2 1864 pxii in the list of members.

Annual Register of World Events: A Review of the Year vol 94 1852 Appendix of marriages: p236 May [1852] Lucy Annabella daughter of Isaac Wood to Robert Howard of Broughton Hall Flint.

The County Families of the UK by Edward Walford. Volume 59 1919 p186: reference to the marriage of John Howard of Broughton Hall Flintshire and Lucy Annabella, archdeacon Wood’s only daughter.

Accounts and Papers of the House of Commons 1862 p25 The Committee of Privy Council on Education. Isaac Wood as archdeacon of Chester leading a clerical protest against a new Code of Regulations.

The English Church Union Kalendar (sic) 1863 p123 appointments, diocese of Chester which covered Cheshire but also parts of Lancashire.

More Monumental Inscriptions: Tombstones of the British West Indies p97 section on St James church Windward Islands in a place p101 called Nevis. In the churchyard on the North side of the vestry, a memorial to Thomas Charles Wood, youngest son of archdeacon Isaac Wood, who died in 1864 aged 30.

Ecclesiastical Gazette issue of 11 July 1865 p16 list of recent deaths that of Isaac Wood archdeacon of Chester, aged 70.

At www.dnr.me.uk/ncfhs2 there’s the website of the North Cheshire Family History Society: by 1871 Newton Hall was being lived in by James Pownall and his family; he was a retired silk manufacturer.

On Newton Hall:

At www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk Newton Hall Middlewich, Grade II listed in 1975.

The connection with Edmund Burke:

Several websites say archdeacon Wood inherited items from Edmund Burke after the death of Edmund’s wife Jane; they were later inherited by the Pixley family. The items included Edmund Burke’s Bible with details of family marriages, births etc.

Studies in Burke and his Time published Alfred University 1965 p714.

Visits to Ellen Bearcroft, which continued after Kat was grown-up: Do/Dead pp159-162.

MAY 1857 TO JULY 1858

The Indian Mutiny or First War of Independence was fought.

Comments by Sally Davis:

Kat, of course, never thought of the event as anything but a mutiny. It held a fascination for her many decades after it took place. Her brother Charles had been involved in it, fighting and being injured at Jullunder; he was lucky not to have his arm amputated. One of its British heroes, Alfred Stowell Jones, was a friend of the family: his father was archdeacon of Liverpool when Rev Bates worked there in the 1830s. Alfred Jones was Quarter-Master General in Delhi during its Mutiny siege and earned the VC for bravery there and later at Agra. Kat also revered one of the other men made a hero of by the British public: John Nicholson of the East India Company’s Bengal Infantry, who died of injuries received during the recapture of Delhi. On her first visit to Delhi, in November 1890, she chose to spend her time visiting sites connected with the Mutiny rather than the city’s great Mughal buildings.

Kat’s comments in her travel books make it plain that she shared the general belief of her generation in the superiority of British, Christian culture and the benevolence of the British Empire. Such a terrifying series of events, threatening her with the possible death of yet another family member - her favourite brother - obviously went pretty deep. It does still seem to me to be a strange fascination though.

Sources:

For Charles Bates’ injuries at Jullunder: Kat’s introduction to More Leaves from the Common-place Book of C.E.B. “In Memoriam Col Charles Ellison Bates, Bengal Staff Corps”.

Printed for private circulation 1907 by Arthur F Bird of 22 Bedford Street Strand: p12. The British Library’s copy is the one Kat sent to a Mrs and Miss Nicholson, perhaps relatives of John Nicholson, “In memory of a pleasant meeting - London Nov 4". Though Kat never knew John Nicholson, perhaps her brother Charles did.

Who Was Who volume 2 p562: Alfred Stowell Jones VC (1832-1920).

See wikipedia for the East India Company’s John Nicholson. His tomb is in Delhi near the Kashmir Gate. I won’t say any more about him, it’s making my teeth grind writing this much.

Kat’s tour of Delhi in 1890: S/U pp52-53. She also made a special trip to Lahore, the last place Charles Bates had been stationed.

1859

Charles Bates was involved in another military action, at Bundlecund.

Source:

Times Sat 29 Sep 1906 p9: obituary of Charles Ellison Bates.

BEGINNING SUMMER 1860

Charles Bates was a member of the military expedition into China in the last phase of the 2^nd Opium War.

Source:

Wikipedia on the 2^nd Opium War. The campaign Charles went on had been delayed by the fighting in India. It was a joint British and French force led by General James Hope Grant and General Cousin-Montauban. The troops assembled in Hong Kong and ended up in Beijing in after a series of pitched battles. The Qing emperor fled, the invaders destroyed the summer palaces, and the War was ended by the Convention of Beijing in October 1860.

Sources: wikipedia on the 2^nd Opium War; and Times Sat 29 Sep 1906 p9: obituary of Charles Ellison Bates.

12 DECEMBER 1863

Kat’s uncle, Henry William Bates, died.

Source: Probate Registry entries 1864.

Comment by Sally Davis: of the four men originally named by Rev Bates to supervise his children’s future, only George Thomas Ellison now survived. He died in 1885. As Kat never obviously mentions him in any of her books, not even using one of her false names, I don’t know what kind of relationship she had with him.

WHEN KAT WAS ABOUT 18 ie around 1864

Kat sat down to her first spiritualist séances, during a visit from her brother Charles, on a long period of leave from the army.

Source: S/U pp11-13.

Comment by Sally Davis: these sessions were taking place at her godfather’s house, and – at least to a certain extent – with his approval, although he didn’t take part himself. Those who were taking part in the seances were two young relations of Kat’s godfather; and Charles Bates.

I haven’t been able to identify the young relations: Kat gives the young man one of her false names; and doesn’t name the young woman at all.

UNKNOWN DATE BUT POSSIBLY AROUND THIS TIME

Kat studied one or two books on palmistry and then read a few hands. She gained what she felt was an undeserved reputation as a palmist, amongst her acquaintances.

Source though without anything like a date except that she was a “young woman” at the time: P/Realm pp57-58. She is writing about how easy it is in the psychic realm to be viewed as an expert on very little knowledge and experience.

FEBRUARY 1865

Charles Ellison Bates went to Bhutan with the Bhutan Field Force and stayed to the end of the campaign there.

Source: Times Sat 29 Sep 1906 p9: obituary of Charles Ellison Bates.

7 JUNE 1865

Rev Isaac Wood, archdeacon of Chester, died.

Comment by Sally Davis: this entry only relevant if I’ve got the right man as Kat’s godfather, of course.

Source: Probate Registry entries 1865.

?FOR TWO YEARS, WHEN KAT LEFT SCHOOL – whenever that was

Kat went to live with Rev David Dale Stewart and his wife Cecilia. The Rev Stewart was vicar of Maidstone in Kent.

Comment by Sally Davis: in S/U p14 Kat mentions leaving school, and who it was who gave her a home; but she doesn’t say when it happened or how long she stayed with them. However, on Cope p121 there’s a paragraph in which no names are mentioned, but which probably refers to Cecilia Raikes and to her nephew Francis William Raikes. This paragraph says that Kat only lived with the anonymous woman for 2 years. If the woman is Cecilia Raikes, there might be two different reasons why it didn’t last any longer. It all depends on how you interpret Kat saying that she was consoling a young man “for my lack of appreciation”. See below for more on reasons number 1 - Kat’s rejection of a marriage proposal made by Cecilia’s nephew. Reason number 2 was what Kat said about the anonymous woman: “a lady with whom I had not an idea in common, and who was in every way antipathetic to me and I to her”.

The Stewarts:

Though neither Rev Stewart nor his wife were related to Kat, she had known them all her life. Rev Stewart was the son of Rev James Haldane Stewart whom Rev Bates had worked for in the 1830s at St Bride’s Liverpool. His wife, Cecilia, was the sister of Rev Henry Raikes, chancellor of the diocese of Chester. Cecilia’s another of my candidates for being Kat’s godmother.

Both Rev James Haldane Stewart’s sons had become priests in the Church of England. Rev David had served a turn in his father’s old parish of St Bride’s Liverpool: he was its vicar on the day of the 1851 census. He’d been appointed perpetual curate of Maidstone in 1854: a plum job, as its patron was the archbishop of Canterbury and the income of its parish priest in the 1860s was an enormous £750 per year plus the house; though revenue fell slightly during the 1870s. He had married Cecilia Raikes the same year. Rev David and Cecilia had no children of their own. They lived well, though not flamboyantly: on the day of the 1871 census they were at home in Maidstone vicarage with a staff of cook, parlourmaid, housemaid and gardener. The vicarage had a separate stable block housing more staff.

Rev David Dale Stewart remained at Maidstone until 1878. From 1871 to 1878 he was one of the six regular preachers at Canterbury Cathedral. His reward was to be moved to be rector of Coulsdon near Caterham in Surrey, which had an income of £900 per year. He was appointed an honorary canon of Rochester cathedral in 1885. He published sermons and contributions to the religious debates of his day, and the memoir of his father Rev James Haldane Stewart that I used while researching Rev Bates’ time in Liverpool. Rev David Stewart died in 1900 and Cecilia in 1902.

Sources: census information 1851-1901.

Rev David Dale Stewart:

Crockford’s Clerical Directory 1865 p598.

Crockford’s Clerical Directory 1872 p814.

Crockford’s Clerical Directory 1887 p1159.

Probate Registry entries 1900, 1903.

On Kat’s ability to ride a horse: GR2 p184.

18 JANUARY 1866

Kat’s eldest brother Henry married Frances Henrietta Rivett-Carnac; at Milford Hampshire.

Source:

Times Mon 22 January 1866 p1: marriage notices.

Comment by Sally Davis: as Henry was now setting up home in England, perhaps Kat went to live with him. However, she never mentions having done so: later in her life she sometimes stayed with him and Frances Henrietta, but was not a permanent member of their household.

1868

Charles went on the military expedition to Abyssinia, in its transport train.

Sources: wikipedia on the British Expedition to Abyssinia of 1868. It was a punitive expedition, against Twedodros II of Ethiopia who had imprisoned some missionaries and British diplomats. The expedition was led by General Sir Robert Napier and despite the difficulties of the terrain – hilly and without roads – the British forces won all the military encounters and set the prisoners free.

Times Sat 29 Sep 1906 p9 obituary of Charles Ellison Bates.

1871-72

Charles Ellison Bates went to the Lushai hills in the Chittagong column of the Looshai Expeditionary Force.

Source: wikipedia on the Lushai Expedition which, like the Abyssinian campaign, was a punitive one – the Lushai hill tribe had encroached over the border into Assam and kidnapped some British residents. The campaign secured the release of the hostages and a peace with the Lushai that lasted until 1888.

Times Sat 29 Sep 1906 p9: obituary of Charles Ellison Bates.

Comment by Sally Davis: later travels by Kat indicate how closely she had followed her brother Charles’ military career. It was probably at the end of the Looshai campaign that he was sent to Lahore, where he spent the next seven years.

PROBABLY BETWEEN 1870 AND 1872

Kat turned down a proposal of marriage from a man she refers to only as ‘judge Forbes’.

Source for the proposal and the false name: S/U pp111-114. On S/U p111 she says that she first met ‘judge forbes’ shortly after he started at Cambridge University; and p114 mentions 1870 as a year she thought of as featuring him in her life.

She was probably still living with the Stewarts: Cope p121 but with no names and no date. Kat mentions trying to console a man for “my lack of appreciation”; I’m taking that as an oblique reference to a marriage proposal turned down.

Comment by Sally Davis: this is the only marriage proposal that Kat mentions in any of her books. I wouldn’t have tried to find the man in question, though, if in Seen and Unseen she hadn’t given some facts about him that made me think I might be able to work out who he really was. I’m confident that the disappointed suitor was Francis William Raikes (1842-1906), Cecilia Stewart’s nephew.

Francis William Raikes was a son of Rev Henry Raikes and his wife Lucy Charlotte; Rev Henry was chancellor of the diocese of Chester, a friend and colleague of Kat’s father, the Rev Bates. After serving in the Royal Navy for a few years, Francis William Raikes left it and went to Cambridge University, graduating MA in 1872. He was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1873 and worked as a barrister, specialising in maritime law. He was made a county court judge, with a circuit in Yorkshire, in 1898. In 1878 he married Diana Mary Howard Barber. They had one child, Francis Howard Raikes, born 1879. The younger Francis Raikes joined the King’s Royal Rifle Corps. He was killed in South Africa on 6 January 1900 during a sortie out of the besieged town of Ladysmith.

If Kat was still living with the Stewarts when Francis Raikes made his proposal, her refusal of it might have made relations with them rather difficult. Kat never regretted turning Francis Raikes down, though. What she heard of him later only confirmed that she’d made the right decision. They did meet again, though only after many years, and Kat became a good friend of his wife. Francis Raikes continued to be a friend and confidant of both Rev David Dale Stewart and Cecilia long after Kat said no: they each named him as an executor of their Will.

Sources: freebmd.

How Francis William and Cecilia were related: Pedigree of Raikes compiled by Joseph Foster and Charles Fitzgerald Raikes. 100 copies only, privately printed London: Phillimore and Co Ltd 1930: pp14-15.

Kat’s reference to ‘judge Forbes’: S/U pp111-114. Her first ever visit to Cambridge (in 1896) put her in mind of him after many years in which she hadn’t seen him.

Familysearch GS film number 1655478: Cheshire Bishop’s Transcripts: baptism of Francis William Raikes at Holy Trinity Chester 7 March 1842.

Times Mon 1 October 1906: obituary Judge Francis William Raikes KC, LlD.

The King’s Royal Rifle Corps Chronicle seen via archive.org p136 in a list of regt’s officers killed in the Boer War: 2^nd Lt F H Raikes.

Times Sat 13 January 1900 p10: list of recent casualties at Ladysmith.

CENSUS DAY 1871 in which Kat makes her last census appearance before that of 1921

Kat was not with Rev Stewart and his wife and may not have been living with them any longer. On census day 1871 she had gone visiting - “E Catherine Bates” was staying in Frampton-on-Severn with the St John family: the Rev Ferdinand St John (43), vicar of Frampton-on-Severn; his wife Charlotte; his children Alice (17) and Ferdinand (9); and his widowed mother Selina (68). Also visiting were Frances Scott (35) and her daughter Margaret (5).

Kat’s brother Henry and his wife Frances Henrietta were living in Gloucestershire, at Cranham House Cirencester. John and Charles Bates were abroad with their regiments.

Comment by Sally Davis:

Going visiting was the bedrock of Kat’s life. Kat makes no mention of the St Johns in any of her books so I don’t know how she became friendly with them or whether the friendship was maintained.

Rev Ferdinand St John had been appointed vicar of Frampton in 1853. Its stipend was very modest compared to Rev Stewart’s - £250 per year in the 1870s – and on census day 1871 he and his wife were keeping house and entertaining their guests with the help of only a cook and a housemaid; though Mrs Scott had brought her lady’s maid with her. There was a second lady’s maid in the household that day who probably worked for Mrs St John; she might have worked for Kat, but I don’t think so – Kat never mentions employing a maid. Rev St John was moved on to be vicar of Kempsford in 1880. He was made a canon of Gloucester Cathedral in 1884 but may have retired soon after and gone to live abroad - he was not in England on the census days of 1891 or 1901.

Sources: census 1871; and 1881-1911

Rev Maurice William Ferdinand St John:

Crockford’s Clerical Directory 1865 p552 Maurice William Ferdinand St John.

Crockford’s Clerical Directory 1872 p751. Information in this issue suggests that the connection with Kat may be through clergy in the diocese of Chester once again: Rev St John had been ordained in 1852 by the then bishop of Chester, Rev John Graham.

Crockford’s Clerical Directory 1887 p1066-67.

Wikipedia: list of bishops of Chester. While teaching at Christ Church Cambridge in 1829-30, Rev Graham had had Charles Darwin in his tutorials.

OCTOBER 1871

Kat had her 25^th birthday. On that day she became the legal owner of the £5000 that her father had left in trust for her.

Source: Will of John Ellison Bates: Prerogative Court of Canterbury Wills 1384-1858; text seen at Ancestry.

Comments by Sally Davis: Kat may also have had inheritances from her mother and her uncle Henry William Bates, but I can’t prove that she did with information I can access easily and cheaply. During her minority, the income earned by investing the £5000 will have been administered by the trustees of the trust fund Rev Bates had set up. Their duties included investing it sensibly, and using the income obtained from it to pay Kat’s school fees and her keep. However, by 1871 Kat might already have been administering it herself. She had her own bank account with the London and County Bank in Maidstone.

Source for the bank account: GD administrative records quoted in R A Gilbert’s The Golden Dawn Companion. Wellingborough Northants: The Aquarian Press 1986: p147.

UNKNOWN DATE BUT PERHAPS DURING 1870s

Kat used to stay in Dresden, often for months at a time, with an English family she had known before they moved there.

Source though without names or dates:

The Coping Stone: its True Significance by E Katharine Bates. London: Greening and Co Ltd 1912: pp13-14. Kat’s visits to the family went on for many years.

That’s the end of this second file on Kat Bates, covering 1856 to the mid-1870s. It misses out some events for which I haven’t got exact dates, but which seemed to me to be better dealt with in the next life-by-dates file.

5 March 2018

Find the web pages of Roger Wright and Sally Davis, including my list of people initiated into the Order of the Golden Dawn between 1888 and 1901, at:

www.wrightanddavis.co.uk

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