Cadwallader John Bates (1853-1902)
Cadwallader John Bates was born at Kensington Gate on the west side of London on 14th January 1853. He occupied several public offices in his life: a J.P. in Hexham, Governor of the Shaftoe Charity, President of several agricultural societies, and in 1890 held the office of High Sheriff of Northumberland.
He inherited Heddon Colliery, worked in the colliery office, and lived with his father at Heddon Hall off Station Road. Hodgkin (below) mentions Heddon Banks but this may be an error.
He was a distinguished antiquarian and historian responsible for a detailed history of Heddon on the Wall and a popular History of Northumberland among much other distinguished work. He died suddenly a the early age of 49 in March 1902 and was buried in the grounds of Langley Castle which he had bought in 1882. His wife Josephine d'Echarvines dedicated the chapel situated on the roof to his memory. She lived on at Langley Castle alone, carrying on his restoration work, until her death in 1933.
Does anyone get called Cadwallader these days? It has a certain air about it and, as Thomas Hodgkin says below, is very fitting for an archaeologist.
OBITUARY NOTICE OF MR. CADWALLADER JOHN BATES, M.A., A VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE SOCIETY.
By Thomas Hodgkin, D.C.L., F.S.A., etc.
[Read on the 30th April, 1902.]
ARCHAEOLOGIA AELIANA Vol. XXIV (1903)
Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle upon Tyne
By the death of Mr. Cadwallader J. Bates the Newcastle Society of Antiquaries has lost not only an active member and a distinguished vice-president, but the man to whom we were especially looking to hold high the standard of archaeological accuracy and thoroughness in future years.
Though, as has been already said at our previous meeting, it would require another student as laborious and as many-sided as himself to do full justice to his character as an antiquary, a brief sketch of his life and literary work must be included in the records of our Society.
Cadwallader John Bates was bom in 1853. His name Cadwallader — so fitting for an archaeologist — came to him indirectly from the family of Lord Blayney, with which he was connected by a maternal ancestor. As might be supposed from this name, there was in him a strain of Welsh blood, but his direct ancestors in the paternal line had been for many centuries settled in the county of Northumberland and were always employed in agriculture, sometimes as landowners, sometimes as occupiers, and sometimes in both capacities. His great- uncle, Thomas Bates (1776-1849), holds a high place in the bucolic annals of England as one of the chief improvers of the breed of short- homed cattle and the founder of the celebrated Kirklevington herd. The Kirklevington estate, which is situated near Tarm, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, was purchased by him out of a fortune which he had acquired by judicious and scientific farming in the valley of the Tyne. Cadwallader Bates, in succession to his father and to four uncles, who died without issue, became eventually the heir of Thomas Bates's property as well as of an estate in Lithuania, which bad been acquired by his uncle, Mr. Edward Bates, of the Schloss Oloden, Germany. The most important part of his property was, however, his share in the Heddon colliery.
His education was conducted at Eton and Jesus College, Cambridge, but owing to the temporary failure of his eyesight he had to be withdrawn from the former and could only take an ' aegrotat ' degree at the latter. This disappointing interruption of his studies (which also forbade his entering on a professional life was, however, in his case largely compensated for by the leisure afforded for the education of travel. During this interval in his life he travelled much on the continent of Europe, visited many out-of-the-way places, and accumulated a large store of historical knowledge.
After leaving college he lived with his father at Heddon Banks, near Heddon-on-the-Wall, and entered the Heddon colliery office, Newcastle- upon-Tyne. During his intervals of leisure he pursued with unremitting energy the historical studies in which he had become interested at Cambridge. He soon began to make a special study of the castles in which our county is so rich, and the result of his labours was given to the world in 1891 in his well-known work on ' Border Holds,' which forms the fourteenth volume of the Archaeologia Aeliana. Unhappily, only the first volume of this admirable history of Northumbrian castles was ever published. He fully intended to write a second volume, but other literary employment intervened, and now the work, interesting and valuable as it is, must for ever remain a fragment.
Another visible memorial of the interest inspired in him by the ruined fortresses of his native county is furnished by his restoration of Langley castle, near Haydon Bridge, which after his father's death he bought from the trustees of Greenwich hospital in 1882, and with the assistance of Mr. Hodgson Fowler, architect, of Durham, converted into a stately dwelling-house, sufficiently furnished with all modern comforts.
Though, as has been already said at our previous meeting, it would require another student as laborious and as many-sided as himself to do full justice to his character as an antiquary, a brief sketch of his life and literary work must be included in the records of our Society.
Cadwallader John Bates was bom in 1853. His name Cadwallader — so fitting for an archaeologist — came to him indirectly from the family of Lord Blayney, with which he was connected by a maternal ancestor. As might be supposed from this name, there was in him a strain of Welsh blood, but his direct ancestors in the paternal line had been for many centuries settled in the county of Northumberland and were always employed in agriculture, sometimes as landowners, sometimes as occupiers, and sometimes in both capacities. His great- uncle, Thomas Bates (1776-1849), holds a high place in the bucolic annals of England as one of the chief improvers of the breed of short- homed cattle and the founder of the celebrated Kirklevington herd. The Kirklevington estate, which is situated near Tarm, in the North Riding of Yorkshire, was purchased by him out of a fortune which he had acquired by judicious and scientific farming in the valley of the Tyne. Cadwallader Bates, in succession to his father and to four uncles, who died without issue, became eventually the heir of Thomas Bates's property as well as of an estate in Lithuania, which bad been acquired by his uncle, Mr. Edward Bates, of the Schloss Oloden, Germany. The most important part of his property was, however, his share in the Heddon colliery.
His education was conducted at Eton and Jesus College, Cambridge, but owing to the temporary failure of his eyesight he had to be withdrawn from the former and could only take an ' aegrotat ' degree at the latter. This disappointing interruption of his studies (which also forbade his entering on a professional life was, however, in his case largely compensated for by the leisure afforded for the education of travel. During this interval in his life he travelled much on the continent of Europe, visited many out-of-the-way places, and accumulated a large store of historical knowledge.
After leaving college he lived with his father at Heddon Banks, near Heddon-on-the-Wall, and entered the Heddon colliery office, Newcastle- upon-Tyne. During his intervals of leisure he pursued with unremitting energy the historical studies in which he had become interested at Cambridge. He soon began to make a special study of the castles in which our county is so rich, and the result of his labours was given to the world in 1891 in his well-known work on ' Border Holds,' which forms the fourteenth volume of the Archaeologia Aeliana. Unhappily, only the first volume of this admirable history of Northumbrian castles was ever published. He fully intended to write a second volume, but other literary employment intervened, and now the work, interesting and valuable as it is, must for ever remain a fragment.
Another visible memorial of the interest inspired in him by the ruined fortresses of his native county is furnished by his restoration of Langley castle, near Haydon Bridge, which after his father's death he bought from the trustees of Greenwich hospital in 1882, and with the assistance of Mr. Hodgson Fowler, architect, of Durham, converted into a stately dwelling-house, sufficiently furnished with all modern comforts.
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http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2453170  Grave of Cadwallader J Bates and his wife Josephine, Langley Castle. A. Curtis (2011). |
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2453840  Langley Castle from the south-west. A. Curtis (2011) |
Being invited by Mr. Elliot Stock the publisher to write the volume on Northumberland for his series of county histories, he accepted the invitation and gave the labour of not less than two years to that unpretentious production. The very narrow limits within which, by the law of the series, he was confined made this a somewhat uncongenial task, and parts of the book have certainly suffered from the severe compression to which it has been subjected ; but no student who uses it will fail to recognise with gratitude the vast amount of patient and conscientious labour which has been bestowed in its composition.
His next literary work was of a kind which surprised many of his friends. From border castles and Northumbrian chronicles he turned aside to compile the pedigrees of cattle. 'Thomas Bates and the Kirklevington Short-horns : a Contribution to the History of pure Durham Cattle' by Cadwallader John Bates,* was published at Newcastle in 1897. He felt that the true history of this important development of British farming had never been properly written, and having in his possession many unpublished letters of his collateral ancestor, he decided on giving them to the world together with a detailed history of his life and exposition of his views on the science of cattle-breeding. Few things give one a more vivid impression of Mr. Bates's untiring industry and power of mastering the most difficult subjects than this goodly octavo volume of more than 400 pages, in which he discusses the points of short-horn cows as if he had been engaged in breeding them all his life and had never heard the names of Bede or of Simeon of Durham. His antiquarian friends can only 'stand fixed in mute amaze' when they hear him dilate on the excellencies of 'a combination of the Cambridge, Rose, and Duchess blood which resulted in some very showy level cows, rich reds and roans, with sweet, breedy heads and a deal of substance and good quality,' but he evidently knows what he is talking about and we can only wonder at the many-sidedness of the author. We read a letter from Lord Althorp to Thomas Bates (16 Nov. 1820) beginning 'I arrived here last night and found His Grace arrived safe but not quite well, as he coughs a little,' and we think. Have we got back from cattle to human affairs, and are we among the statesmen of George IV.'s reign ? No. His Grace is a young bull, * a grand animal, the very image of his father Eetton, with that fine, fleecy coat that so remarkably distinguished the Duchess tribe.'
Altogether a most marvellous production is this dissertation of our late vice-president on his great uncle's stock-book, yet we archaeologists may be excused for a slight spasm of jealousy if it was this that deprived us of the completion of 'Border Holds.' Having discharged this duty towards the memory of his dead ancestor, Mr Bates turned back to Northumbrian history and, unless I have been wrongly informed, meditated the production of a book which was to deal with the earlier history of the North of England in far larger lines than the volume which he had published for Mr. Stock.
He was thus brought face to face with that great ecclesiastical question which occupied so much of the time and thought of Northumbrian churchmen, till it was settled in 664 at the Synod of Whitby : I allude to the discussion as to the right season for the celebration of Easter, This question had also, perhaps, more than a mere archaeological interest for him, in consequence of his having recently joined the Church of Rome. However this may be, he devoted himself to it with characteristic thoroughness, plunged deep into the enquiry as to the accuracy of the rival Paschal cycles, and studied in connexion herewith the life and writings of Columbanus and other champions of the Celtic Easter. I believe this enquiry occupied at least a year of his literary life : and now that he has gone, it would be safe to say that there is no man living on this planet who is able to discuss it as thoroughly as he would have done. However completely the debate may have ' fallen dead,' even to ecclesiastics, it is much to be hoped that the result of his labours may not be altogether lost, and that the notes which he must have accumulated in the course of his studies may be in a fit state for publication. It is believed that St. Wilfrid was meant to be the central figure in the book which he proposed to write : but at the time of his death he was more specially concerned with the life of St. Patrick, whose relation to the See of Rome on the one hand and to Celtic Christianity on the other had an important bearing on his researches. From some little correspondence which I had with him a few months ago I gathered that he entirely rejected the theory of Prof. Zimmer that St. Patrick's work in Ireland was rather the confutation of Pelagian heresy than the conversion of heathens and idolaters, and that, on the contrary, he was prepared stoutly to do battle on behalf of the old- fashioned description of that saint as the true ' Apostle of Ireland.' . All these far-reaching plans of historical work have now been rudely interrupted by his, as it seems to us, untimely death. As I have already said, it is believed that some portions of his papers are in a state ready for publication, but at the best they will lack that final revision which, in the case of such a conscientious student so hard to satisfy, either with his own work or the work of others, would have meant so much.
In this review of the labours of our late vice-president, I have said nothing as to his connection with the new County History of Northumberland. He took a warm interest in the scheme from the very outset, was present at the first meeting of the promoters, and during his year of office as sheriff of Northumberland (he repudiated with emphasis the title of high sheriff), he gave a dinner in the castle, Newcastle, to the leading gentlemen of the county in order to enlist their interest in the undertaking. I trust that in the preface to the next volume the editor will give a more detailed statement than I can do here as to his actual share in the composition of the history.
I must here close a very inadequate sketch of the life and work of a most remarkable man, of one who, while engaging to some extent in commercial pursuits and taking his full share of the duties of public life, devoted himself with untiring patience to the study of the records of past ages and laboured after historic truth with a resolute thoroughness which would have seemed more characteristic of a German professor than an English country gentleman.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
(By Mb. J. C. Hodgson, F.S.A.)
1880. LiPiEC, or, A July in the Polish Highlands.
1883. The Barony and Castle of Langley.*
1885. Heddon-on-the-Wall — the Church and Parish.*
1886. Three Papal Bulls confirmatory of the Possessions of the Riddells of Riddell.*
1887. On the Armorial Devices attributed to the County of Northumberland.*
1889. The Dedications of the Ancient Churches and Chapels in the Diocese of Newcastle.*
1891. Border Holds.*
1892. Names of Persons and Places mentioned in the Early Lives of St. Cuthbert.*
1892. Flodden Field.*
1893. Bamburgh Castle. f
1894. A Forgotten Reference to Roman Mile Castles.*
1895. A History of Northumberland.
1895. Dunstanborough Castle.t . v
1895. Architectural Descriptions of the Towers at Embleton, Craster, Rock and Proctor Steads.t
1897. The Distance Slabs of the Antonine Wall and the Roman Names of its Fortresses.*
1897. The Beornicas and the Deras.*
1897. The Home of St. Cuthbert's Boyhood.*
1897. The Early Swinbornes of East and West Swinburn.f
1897. Nine-banks Tower.f
1897. The de Insulas of Chipchase.f
1897. Winwedfield : The Overthrow of English Paganism.*
1897. Thomas Bates and the Kirklevington Shorthorns.
1898. Three additional Miracles ascribed to St. Acca of Hexham.*
1899. The Brothers Colling.
1899. Warkworth Castle.t
1899. Warkworth Hermitage.t
1899. Life of St. Henry of Coquet.f
1902. Bywell Castle.t
1902. Edward III. at Blanchland.t
1902. St. Patrick's Early Home.||
1902. Introduction to the Report of the Pedigree Stock Committee, and sections of the Preface dealing with the Chillingham Cattle, the Haggerston Bisons, and with Shorthorns. §
In addition to the above many short papers and notes have appeared in the Proceedings of the Newcastle Society of Antiquaries, which see.
* Printed in the Archaeologia Aeliana.
t Contributions to the new History of Northumberland
^ several of which accounts were re-written from chapters in ' Border Holds.'
X Printed in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England,
II Printed in the Ushaw Magazine,
§ Journal of the Newcastle Farmers* Club,
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http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/1864855  Langley Castle (2010) A. Curtis |
http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2145608  Langley Castle (2010) A. Curtis |
Cadwallader John Bates by Gabriel Stanley Woods
in Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement
BATES, CADWALLADER JOHN (1853–1902), antiquary, born on 14 Jan. 1853 at Kensington Gate, London, was eldest son of Thomas Bates, barrister and fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge (1834-49), by his first wife, Emily, daughter of John Batten of Thorn Falcon, Somerset. The Bates family had been established in Northumberland since the fourteenth century, but their connection with the Blayneys of Gregynog, Montgomeryshire, introduced a strain of Celtic blood, and Cadwallader himself was named after a cousin, the twelfth and last Lord Blayney (d. 1874). His great-uncle was Thomas Bates [q. v. Suppl. I], stockbreeder, whom he commemorated in an elaborate biography, entitled ' Thomas Bates and the Kirklevington Shorthorns' (Newcastle-upon-Tyne, 1897). Entering Eton in 1866, he left two years later owing to serious weakness of eyesight. In 1869 he proceeded to Jesus College, Cambridge; but the same cause compelled him to take an aegrotat degree in the moral science tripos of 1871. He proceeded M.A. in 1875. After leaving Cambridge, Bates, who was an accomplished linguist, travelled much in Poland and the Carpathians, paying frequent visits to his uncle, Edward Bates, who resided at Schloss Cloden, Brandenburg, Prussia. In 1882 he succeeded on his father's death to the family estates of Aydon White House, Heddon, Kirklevington, having already inherited his uncle's Prussian property. Although his interests were mainly antiquarian, he had practical knowledge of farming, and was partially successful in building up again the famous herd of Kirklevington shorthorns, which had been dispersed in 1850 [see Bates, Thomas, Suppl. I]. In 1882 he purchased from the Greenwich Hospital commissioners Langley Castle near Haydoa Bridge, and spent large sums on its restoration. As a magistrate and deputy-lieutenant Bates took his full share of county business, and in 1890 served the office of high sheriff of Northumberland. In later years he developed a taste for hagiography, and in 1893, while on a visit to Austrian Poland, he was received into the Roman catholic church. His indefatigable historical labours told on his health. He died of heart failure at Langley Castle on 18 March 1902, and was buried in the castle grounds. On 3 Sept. 1895 he married Josephine, daughter of Francois d'Echarvine, of Talloires, Savoy, who survived him without issue. The representation of the family devolved on his eldest half-brother, Edward H. Bates, now Bates Harbin. Bates was a recognised authority on the medieval history of Northumbria. In 'Border Holds' (1891), a minute study of Northumbrian castles, he showed thoroughness of research and sedulous accuracy. His design of completing the work in a second volume was unfulfilled. His popular 'History of Northumberland' (1895) suffered somewhat from compression, but remains a standard work. Bates also assisted both as critic and contributor in the compilation of the first six volumes of a 'History of Northumberland' (Newcastle-on-Tyne, 1893-1902), designed to complete the work of John Hodgson [q. v.]. He was a vice-president of the Newcastle Society of Antiquaries, and from 1880 a frequent contributor to 'Archæologia Æliana.' He left some unfinished studies on the lives of St. Patrick and St. Gildas, 'The Three Pentecosts of St. Colomb and Kille,' and 'The Early Paschal Cycle.' A collection of his letters, chiefly on antiquarian subjects, was published in 1906.
[The Times, 20 March 1902 ; Ushaw Mag., July 1902 ; Letters of C. J. Bates ed. Rev. Matthew Culley, Kendal, 1906 ; Archæologia Æliana, 1903, xxiv. 178 seq., memoir by Dr. Thomas Hodgkin ; private information from the family.]
[The Times, 20 March 1902 ; Ushaw Mag., July 1902 ; Letters of C. J. Bates ed. Rev. Matthew Culley, Kendal, 1906 ; Archæologia Æliana, 1903, xxiv. 178 seq., memoir by Dr. Thomas Hodgkin ; private information from the family.]
