James T. Bates

James Tuttle Bates (born September 29, 1844 in Boston , Massachusetts , † December 24, 1914 in Geneva ) was an American businessman . He was the founder of the daily newspaper Tribune de Genève and the Union Bank, which was taken over in 1920 by the Swiss Bank Corporation, now UBS .

Bates was born the son of the shipowner Joseph Bates, who emigrated from Liverpool to the USA, and Abbie Bates. At 17 he became a member of the Union Army , at 21 he rose to lieutenant colonel . In New York , he eventually became a stockbroker on the New York Stock Exchange and thus came into contact with Arthur Chenevière, a Geneva banker, who invited him to visit him when he came to Europe. He then actually traveled to Geneva and fell in love with the daughter of his host, Amélie (1846–1889). They married in 1873 and moved to the United States, but Amélie did not like it there. In 1874 they returned to Geneva to have their first child. He bought an English-language newspaper, The Continental Herald & Swiss Times , which he split into The Continental Herald and The Geneva Times and made La Tribune de Genève from the latter in 1879 . From 1878 he was an active member of the Emmanuel Church , an American church in Geneva.

He had six children with Amélie, Marguerite, Alice, Maurice-Edmond (died after childbirth), Gertrude, Edmée-Mina and Frederick Noriss (called Fred). In 1903 Bates married the widow Henriette Baron (1858–1943). Fred (1883–1972) took over the management of the Tribune de Genève after his death .

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  James T. Bates, ca.1864

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  Amélie Bates-Chenevière (1846-1889)

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  James T. Bates, ca.1879

Individual evidence

1. ^ Raff: Swiss Bank Corporation. 1962, p. 80.
2. ↑ Étienne Dumont: Le colonel Bates crée “La Tribune de Genève”. ( Memento of the original from August 8, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. In: Tribune de Genève. January 18, 1911. 
3. ↑ Family tree on the website of the Société Genevoise de Généalogie .
4. ↑ Georges Bratschi: Ceux qui on fait la Tribune de Genève et ceux qui les ont secondés. In: Tribune de Genève. Special edition for the 75th anniversary, February 1, 1954, p. XXI.

literature

• Jean de Senarclens: James Bates. In: Historical Lexicon of Switzerland .
• Herbert Raff: Swiss Bank Corporation 1862-1912-1962 . Zurich 1962.