The Bates family: Drapers of Bedford for many decades
‘Cyril Bates’ shop is still remembered for school uniforms by many Bedfordians today.
Origins. The Bates family came from Watford, Hertfordshire in the eighteenth century. They worked on the land. Family names Thomas and Benjamin re-occurred through the generations.
Thomas Bates 1781-1834 and his wife Mary 1782-1845 lived in the Watford area all their lives.
Benjamin Bates 1815-1866
The eldest son of Thomas and Mary was baptized at St Mary’s, Watford on 26 November 1815.
He married Sarah Knowles on 5 June 1837 at Rickmansworth, Hertfordshire. They were living in Watford with a daughter Mary aged one in 1841, recorded in the first National Census. Occupations were not noted in this first census.
In the 1851 census Benjamin worked on the land as ‘Hay Binder’ and in 1861 as ‘Farm Labourer’. He was living in Farm Cottages, Tanners End, Edmonton, Middlesex, having moved from Watford. He died as a result of an accident at his work at Clay Hill farm when he fell out of a hay loft. There was an inquest and the cause of death was believed to be a fractured skull. His death in July 1866 was registered in Edmonton.
Sarah Knowles/Bates 1817-1886
Sarah was also born in or near Watford. Her occupation was ‘Laundress’ in the censuses. She was still living at same address in Tanners End, Edmonton with unmarried children after death of her husband Benjamin, according to the 1871 and 1881 censuses.
She then moved to Bedford, living on the High Street, St Mary’s, where she died aged 69 on 26th December 1886. She was buried on 30th December 1886 at Foster Hill Road (FHR). Grave Ref: B2-55
Thomas Bates 1851-1901- The start of the Bates Drapery business in Bedford
Thomas was born in the last quarter of 1851 in Edmonton, Middlesex, the third of six children recorded in the 1861 census. He was 15 when his father died in the farm accident.
By the time of the 1871 census when Thomas was 19 he had left his family in rural Tanners End and was learning the drapery trade. He was living with William Friendship, a Master Draper, and his family on High Road, Tottenham.
In 1875 Thomas married Agnes Janet Monro.
Agnes’s birth in Beaumaris, Anglesey, Wales to Geoge and Jesse Monro was registered in the first quarter of 1845 as ‘Agnes Jesse’ after her mother Jesse, although she seems to have been known as ‘Agnes Janet’. Her parents were of Scottish origin where the names ‘Jesse’ and ‘Janet’ were often interchangeable. George, in the 1861 census, was a ‘Market Gardener, Master’; the family was living in St Albans. In 1871 they had moved to Luton where George was recorded as ‘Nurseryman’. Agnes was then aged 26. Thomas and Agnes married at the Congregational Church in Luton in February 1875.
By 1879 they had moved to St Albans where their second son Benjamin was born.
In the 1881 census Thomas and Agnes had three sons, Thomas George, (4) Benjamin (2) and Arthur, and a baby daughter Charlotte. Thomas’s occupation was ‘Draper’s Assistant’.
They had moved to Bedford by 1883 as the 1891 census records that their 6th child, Edward Mortimer, was born in Bedford. Civil Registration confirms his birth in the last quarter of 1883. Thomas set up a drapery business at 14 Bromham Road, Bedford. The shop was listed in the 1890 Trade Directory for Bedford.
In the 1891 census the family was living at 31 Alexandra Road. Five more children had been born since the last census, three sons and two daughters. In the household were four Assistants to the business as well as two servants including a nurse. The business was clearly growing and prospering.
In the 1901 census the family occupied numbers 4,6 and 8 St Loyes which included their own family’s living accommodation, a draper’s shop and living space for their shop assistants. Thomas’s sons Benjamin (23), Arthur (21) and Edward (17) and his daughters Charlotte (20) and Oaketta (15) were all involved in the business. Only son Frank (19) appears to have opted out, described as ‘Ironmonger’s apprentice’. There were also five shop assistants and one apprentice shop assistant. The business had grown further.
On 26th July 1901 Thomas died. Probate showed that he bequeathed a successful business as he left a considerable sum of money. He was buried at FHR on 30th July with eldest son Thomas George who had sadly pre-deceased him as a teenager. Grave Ref: B2-66
In 1911 Agnes, now a widow was maintaining the business with the help of Benjamin, her eldest son. She continued to live at St Loyes with three of her sons and a daughter, all unmarried. Benjamin and his wife Emmeline were also living at St Loyes with their two children, Cyril aged 5 and Bessie aged 1. Five shop assistants made up the household which was occupying 6 and 8 St Loyes.
On 19th August 2017 Agnes died aged 72. She was buried at FHR on 23 August. Grave Ref: B2-77. She is commemorated on the gravestone of her husband, Thomas, and their son Thomas George Grave Ref: B2-66.
Thomas George Bates 1877-1892
Thomas George Bates was the eldest son of Thomas and Agnes, born on 5th January 1877 in Luton. He was living with the family in St Albans in the 1881 census and in 1891 aged 14 in Bedford at 31 Alexandra Road. There is no entry for his occupation.
He died on 24th March 1892 in the Infectious Diseases Isolation Hospital (later Westcliffe Isolation Hospital) in Prittlewell, part of Southend-on-Sea. Agnes had travelled to be with him while he had suffered a fever for 14 days. The death was registered at Rochford, Essex. The reason for his presence in Southend-on-Sea is unknown. He was brought back to Bedford and buried at FHR on 28 March 1892. Grave Ref: B2-66
Benjamin Monro Bates (1878-1957) Founder of the Family Draper’s shop in Midland Road, Bedford
Benjamin was born on 28th April 1878 in St Albans to Thomas and Agnes. He was their second son. By 1891 he was living in Bedford at 31 Alexandra Road, Bedford. He was 12 and the drapery business was growing.
Marriage. On 3rd August 1903 he married Emmeline Mary Ward at St Jude’s Church, Kensington. On the marriage certificate both were recorded as aged 25. Benjamin was noted as ‘Draper’ living at St Loyes, Bedford and his father Thomas as ‘Draper, deceased’. Emmeline’s father John was a ‘Watch maker and Jeweller’ of Old Brompton Road, London.
Benjamin and Emmeline had one son and two daughters. Cyril Monro born 1905, Bessie Muriel born 1909 and Stella born 1912.
In the 1911 census Benjamin and Emmeline were living with Benjamin’s mother Agnes who was now a widow, and other members of the family in Bedford. They had been looking after the family draper’s shop for several years.
In 1919 Benjamin moved his family to Midland Road to set up his own drapery business following the death of Agnes in 1917.
In the 1921 census Benjamin and Emmeline were living with their son Cyril and two daughters at 57 Midland Road, next door to their Draper’s shop at number 59. Cyril, aged 15, was learning the trade in Luton working for Drapers, ‘Alexander and Son’.
In 1947 Benjamin retired having established a successful business, and handed over to Cyril.
15th August 1952 Tragedy hits the family. Younger daughter Stella, aged 40, was lost in the Lynmouth floods, one of four victims missing presumed drowned. As a result of very heavy rain 90 million tons of water had cascaded down on to the small village of Lynmouth ‘causing death and devastation beyond anything ever seen in the region during peacetime’. (Martin Hesp, 2017, 65th anniversary of the tragedy). Stella is named on a memorial to the 34 victims, (marked with an arrow)
18th January 1953 Tragic Death of Emmeline
Benjamin and Emmeline were staying with their married daughter Bessie at 203 Kimbolton Rd. Emmeline was found in the early morning lying in the garden, having fallen out of a bedroom window. She died in Bedford Hospital the same day, aged 75. The funeral was at the Howard Congregational Chapel where she had been a longstanding member.
Cremation followed at Kettering Crematorium.
7th November 1957 Death of Benjamin. Benjamin died at a nursing home on Goldington Road aged 79. His home address was 270 Kimbolton Road. The obituary in the Bedfordshire Times & Independent, 15th November 1957, carried the headline ‘Bedford Draper for 40 years’. Other details were given of his life: he played hockey at Bedford Thursday Hockey Club and was a member of Bedford Park Bowling Club. He was a Deacon of Howard Congregational Chapel for 27 years and had been elected a Life Deacon.
Benjamin was cremated at the Counties Crematorium, Northampton, on 12th November.
Charlotte Agnes Bates/Brawn (1881-1978). A Branch of the Bates family settled in the USA. Charlotte was Benjamin’s eldest sister. She was born in St Albans and moved to Bedford with the family, living at 31 Alexandra Road in 1891 aged 10. In November 1902 she married Thomas Brawn in Bedford. He came from a farming family near Kimbolton, Huntingdonshire.
Emigration. By 1907 Charlotte, Thomas and their two children had left England, first for Canada where their third child was born, and then to the USA. In 1910 the American Federal census records them living at Niagara Falls, New York State. Subsequent censuses confirm them living in Niagara County. Thomas’s occupation was ‘farmer’.
Life seemed to have suited them well in the States. They had 14 children and were married for over 70 years. On their 70th wedding anniversary the local newspaper reported that they had 32 grandchildren and 63 great-grandchildren. They were living in Ransamville in Niagara County close to eight of their children. Thomas was 90 when he died in 1974 and Charlotte was 94 on her death in 1978. They were buried in North Ridge Cemetery, Cambria, close to Ransamville.
Cyril Monro Bates (1905-1973). Draper and Purveyor of school uniforms in Bedford
Cyril was born on 23rd June 1905, the eldest child and only son of Benjamin and Emmeline.
In 1912 the local paper records him serving as a page boy at his aunt Edith’s wedding to William Ambridge in Bedford. Edith was Cyril’s father Benjamin’s youngest sister and was an assistant in the family drapery. In the 1921 census, aged 15, Cyril was learning the drapery trade at the well-regarded store of Alexander and Sons, Luton.
Alexander & Sons – prestigious drapers
This was a prominent business founded in 1889 on Wellington Street in Luton. Wellington Street was originally a private road with fine houses laid out by the Marquis of Bute in the early 19th century. Towards the end of the century it became known as the best street for shopping in Luton. Alexander & Sons was one of the high-class retailers in the street. It operated as Drapers, Dressmakers, Lacemen and Furriers and was known for its high- quality service, with its motto: ‘Ladies may rely on both our style and fit’. It became commonplace for locals to purchase items like school uniforms from such a shop in the late Victorian/Edwardian era so that customers could choose from the fabrics on display in comfort.
Marriage on 23rd July 1931 to Barbara Mary Spratley, who had close links to the drapery trade.
Barbara was born on 22nd April 1901 to Albert and Helen Spratley. Albert worked as an inventor and for the National Telephone Company. Helen was heavily involved in the drapery trade. The 1921 census tells us that she was a dressmaker and ‘Forewoman’ in the employment of Alexander and Sons, living at the shop on Wellington Street. Barbara, then aged 20, was also learning the trade there as ‘Draper’s Assistant’. The Spratleys were friends of the Alexander family.
Cyril and Barbara settled at 27 Cutliffe Grove in Bedford and had two sons, Ian and Graham, and a daughter Eileen. The 1939 Register records Cyril and Barbara living at 27 Cutliffe Grove, Cyril’s occupation ‘Credit Draper Master’. This was a system often offered by drapers, providing goods on credit usually to the working class who had no access to banks. The debt was paid by regular, often weekly, installments.
During WW2 Cyril served with the RAF in Belgium and had returned to Cutcliffe Grove by 1946. He took over the family business following the retirement of his father in 1947. In 1957 Cyril bought land on Days Lane and had a house built; the family then moved to Biddenham.
January 1964 Drama of the fire. The shop ‘Cyril Bates Ltd’ on Midland Road burnt down.
The Bedford Record of 7th and 14th January 1964 reported the event as follows: ‘A passer-by noticed smoke coming from the premises early one Friday morning and dialled 999. There was soon a ‘blazing inferno’ which necessitated three neighbouring fire brigades coming to help the Bedford Fire Brigade. They were able to prevent the blaze from spreading to adjoining shops but Cyril Bates Ltd was completely destroyed. It was believed that a faulty electric heater caused the fire’.
Part of the drama was the next-door shop H. Adkins a gunsmith. Firemen and Police succeeded in removing 20,000 rounds of ammunition before any catastrophic explosion.
Almost immediately Cyril was offered the use of temporary premises close by on Gwyn Street. (Before the present bus station was built, Gwyn Street continued from Bromham Road down to Midland Road). New stock was arriving daily and Cyril Bates Ltd was able to open again the following Tuesday.
Following the fire it was decided to move the business to Foster Hill Road where many Bedfordians today remember it. It opened in 1965.
Death of Cyril. Cyril died on 27th March 1973 aged 67. He was cremated on 2nd April and his ashes were buried at FHR on 3rd April in the grave of his grandmother, Agnes. Grave Ref: B2-77
Death of Barbara. Barbara had remained living at 55 Days Lane, Biddenham after the death of Cyril. She died on 17th March 1983 aged 81 and was cremated on 24th March. Her ashes were buried with those of her husband on 25th March. Grave Ref: B2-77.The gravestone also commemorates Cyril and Barbara’s elder son Ian who died on 13th April 2018.
Graham Monro Bates 1937-2022. Family Draper, Councillor, Mayor, School Governor, Rotarian and much respected Public Servant.
Graham was born on 12th February 1937 in Queen’s Park, Bedford. Following education at Bedford Modern School and National Service in Malaya, he lived in Biddenham with Cyril and Barbara at their new house on Days Lane. In August 1960 he married Joan Elizabeth (Betty) Blacker and they moved to the recently developed Elgar Close. They had two sons.
Graham gave over 60 years of public service. As a young man he joined the Board of Management of the Chamber of Trade and continued for 16 years, eventually becoming President in 1969.
He was a Borough Councillor for 35 years, and the Mayor of Bedford, 1973-4. He was a governor of several schools including St Andrew’s and Rushmoor, overseeing their merger and the planning for the new Bedford Greenacre School. He undertook many other voluntary roles in the community and was awarded an OBE for his outstanding service.
Cyril Bates Drapery. On the death of his father in 1973 Graham took over the running of the family drapery shop in Foster Hill Road. He combined over 20 years in this role with his very busy public life. As he neared retirement age and ready for a more relaxed time the decision was made to sell the business. In 1997 the shop closed, marking the end of a long era of Bates’s drapery in Bedford.
Death of Graham. Graham died on 18th September 2022 at the age of 85. A detailed obituary and tribute to him with details of his long commitment to public service was included in the November 2022 edition of ‘The Loop’, the parish magazine of St James’s Church, Biddenham. Betty, his wife, had died on 27 September 2001, aged 72. They were both cremated and their ashes were placed with those of their parents in the grave of Graham’s great-grandmother Agnes.
John Bates (1858-1945). Owner of another Bates Draper’s shop in Bedford
John was a younger brother of Thomas, born in 1858 in Edmonton to Benjamin and Sarah. He was living, aged 3, in 1861 with his parents at Tanners End, Edmonton and with his widowed mother following his father’s accident, aged 13 in 1871, as ‘scholar’. By 1881, aged 23, he had joined the drapery trade; the census of that year records him as ‘draper’.
In 1885 he married Gertrude Moon Burrows
Gertrude was born in 1856 in East Leake, Nottinghamshire, the daughter of Richard Burrows and his wife Sarah, née Moon. Her father was described in censuses as ‘Artist’ and ‘Engraver’. Both parents died when Gertrude was young, Sarah in 1865 and Richard in 1866. Gertrude was sent to a boarding school in Somersham, then in Huntingdonshire and by the 1881 census, aged 25, had acquired the skills of a milliner. In that census she was a visitor at her younger brother Charles’s home. Charles was a draper and Gertrude is recorded as ‘milliner’. Her skills would no doubt be useful for her future spouse’s trade in Bedford.
Move to Bedford. John’s brother Thomas had moved to Bedford in 1883. It appears that John followed suit. John and Gertrude were married at the Howard Chapel, Bedford in 1885 and lived the rest of their lives in the town.
By 1890 Kelly’s Directory confirms that both brothers had set up drapery businesses in Bedford, John at ‘Bridge House, St Mary’s, (later 2, St Mary’s Street) and Thomas at 14 Bromham Road. Thomas is described as ‘Draper and Hosier’ and John is quoted as ‘Draper, Hosier, Milliner, Dressmaker, Family mourning’.
‘Bridge House’ at 2, St Mary’s Street, the site of John’s home and shop, stood where the Mercure Hotel is located today. The area was cleared in the early 1960s for redevelopment and the Bedford County Hotel was built there, later renamed a few times before its current name ‘Mercure’. (As at March 2026).
In the 1891 census John’s household consisted of Gertrude, his two children and a number of employees, namely two Draper’s Assistants, an Apprentice, a Draper’s Traveller, a Clerk, a Milliner’s Assistant, and a Dressmaker as well as a Domestic Servant. The business seemed to be thriving.
There are many advertisements in the Bedfordshire Times and Independent for John Bates’s wares. In 1896 and 1897 he used the fashionable term ‘Bon Marché’ to imply his goods were affordable, fashionable and of good quality.
The business had grown further by 1901. The census of that year showed that the family had increased, with three more sons and a daughter, and so had the number of employees. There were now six Draper’s Assistants and three Milliners as well as three Domestic Servants. It appeared to be a large and prosperous household.
Death of Gertrude. In 1908 the family suffered this major loss. Gertrude was 52. Her funeral was held at St Mary’s Church where she had been a hardworking member, followed by burial at FHR. Grave Ref: B3-123
John’s second wife. In early 1911 John married Olive Marianne Morton in Yorkshire. Olive was born in Heeley, Sheffield, the only child of Francis, an engraver, and Emily Morton, both from the Sheffield area. She was over 20 years younger than her husband. John and Olive settled with John’s family at 2, St Mary’s Street in Bedford. The family drapery continued well, as recorded in the 1911 census.
Developments after WW1
The country suffered an economic downturn after the Great War and conditions were especially tough for traditional drapers. They were being replaced by ‘Off the peg’ and ‘Ready to wear’ retailers. In the 1921 census only three of John’s grown-up children were working in the business, with no other paid employees. They were still at 2, St Mary’s Street but it was a smaller concern than in previous years.
John’s Change of Career. By 1923 the family had moved from 2, St Mary’s Street where they had lived since John came to Bedford in 1883. They are recorded on the Electoral Register of that year at 52 Bushmead Avenue. John’s obituary in the local newspaper in 1945 states that on leaving the drapery business John had bought a private hotel, ‘The Kingsley’ on Bushmead Avenue. His role as ‘Hotel Proprietor’ on Bushmead Avenue is confirmed in the 1939 Register. (The 1931 census material is unavailable as it was destroyed in a fire). He was living there with his second wife Olive.
Requisition of the Kingsley Hotel for the BBC. During WW2 in 1941 it was decided to move the BBC Music Department from its first wartime home in Bristol where it was thought too vulnerable to increased German bombing. Bedford was considered a safer place with suitable studio facilities. The Kingsley Hotel and the nearby Cavendish Hotel were requisitioned by the government for staff accommodation and became the Headquarters of the BBC Symphony and Theatre Orchestras. The BBC broadcast its music from seven sites in the town, kept anonymous for security reasons as ‘Somewhere in England’.
Retirement and Death of John. With his hotel requisitioned and already in his 80s John retired and moved to 39 Chaucer Road. He died on 8th October 1945 aged 87. A long obituary in the Bedford Record pointed out his lifelong interest in Freemasonry and gave some details of his children. One of his daughters was a teacher in a Freemasons’ School for Girls in London. Two of his sons, Herbert and Eric, had emigrated to Australia and his elder son Raymond had married Doris Nicholls, the daughter of William Nicholls, a former Mayor of Bedford.
John’s funeral was held at the Bunyan Meeting on the 10th October and he was buried with his first wife Gertrude at FHR. Grave Ref: B3-123.
Olive, his second wife, died on 17th February 1950. The brick grave made a third burial possible and Olive was buried on 22nd February in the grave with Gertrude and John.
Gertrude, John and Olive are commemorated on a family gravestone. The ashes of John’s son Raymond and Raymond’s daughter Pamela were buried with them and the years of the deaths are given.
Sources
Ancestry,
Find a Grave
Censuses !841-1921
Luton Heritage Forum-Chapter 7, Ken Cooper
Devon Heritage- Lynmouth Floods
Eric R Delderfield- The Lynmouth Flood Disaster
North Devon Journal, 2017
Bedfordshire Times and Independent- 23 January 1953 and 15 November 1957
Bedford Record – 9 October 1945 and 7/14 January 1964
Rachel and Natasha at Bedfordshire Archives – Photo of Bates closing down sale.
-Fire Service newspaper cuttings Book 5 1963-64
The Loop, November 2022
Ontario, Canada births 1832-1917
1910 Federal Census, USA
New York State Census 1915
‘War Time Memories’ by Joan Corfield
The Hurtgam family memorabilia
Descendants of Thomas Bates- Tracy Sgambellone and Deborah Smith
Colin Woolf -details of burials
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