Background
The son of Joseph C. Bates, a shipowner, James Bates was born in Boston, Massachusetts.
Businessman Lieutenant Colonel
The son of Joseph C. Bates, a shipowner, James Bates was born in Boston, Massachusetts.
He became a stockbroker in New York City. Soon after moving, in 1876, he acquired the newspaper The Continental Herald and Swiss Times which shortly after became the daily Tribune de Genève on 1 February 1879. In 1887, he founded the "Union Bank", which got absorbed into the Union Bank of Switzerland (later to become Union Bank of Switzerland AG) in 1919.
Bates died in Geneva on 24 December 1914.
Since 1878, he was one of the more active members of the Emmanuel Church, the American church of Geneva.