Background
He was born in Strandtown, Belfast, the son of Richard Dawson Bates, solicitor and Clerk of the Crown, and Mary Dill.
Lord Lieutenant Crown Solicitor
He was born in Strandtown, Belfast, the son of Richard Dawson Bates, solicitor and Clerk of the Crown, and Mary Dill.
Bates was educated at Coleraine Academical Institution. After studying at Queen"s College, Belfast, became a solicitor in 1900, in 1908 founding a firm with his uncle - East and Rural Delivery Bates, later R.B.Uprichard would be apprenticed, become a partner and eventually take over the firm of East and Rural Delivery Bates and Uprichard, as Crown Solicitor.
In 1906 Bates was appointed Secretary of the Ulster Unionist Council. He toured Northern Ireland, working hard to build up the Unionist Party, while portraying all Roman Catholics as traitors. Bates stood down as Secretary on his election to Stormont in 1921, where he represented first East Belfast and later Belfast Victoria.
Bates was also a Deputy Lord Lieutenant of County Down.
They had one son, Major Sir John Dawson Bates, 2nd Baronet(an Oxford-educated Wykehamist, d 1998). In his retirement strained financial circumstances and security (he constantly required a police escort) led him to rent Butleigh House, near Glastonbury, Somerset.
Bates was a director and president of Glentoran Football Club.
During this time, he was instrumental in the events of Ulster Day and in the formation of the UVF, organised the Larne gun-running and supported the formation of the Ulster Unionist Labour Association to counter socialism.
In the government of Sir James Craig he was the first Minister for Home Affairs and a member of the Privy Council of Northern Ireland.