Background
Oates was born in Sicily and educated in Bath, England.
Oates was born in Sicily and educated in Bath, England.
Foreign a time he attended Sydney College, Bath and later under private tutors.
He was a civil servant in the Public Works Department in India and Burma from 1867 to 1899. He retired to England, where he compiled a catalogue of the birds" eggs in the Natural History Museum, and served as secretary of the British Ornithologists" Union from 1898 to 1901. He died in Edgbaston.