Henry Brian Bates
Henry Brian’s spent most of adult life living outside the UK. The report of his father’s funeral in the Sheffield Daily Telegraph (15 November 1932) noted that he was ‘resident in Shanghai.’ He was already in the city when war broke out in 1914 because he returned to the UK in June 1915.
War Service
He went to the recruiting offices immediately after his arrival in London because the London Gazette reported his commission in the Royal Field Artillery from 16th June. 1915 By the end of the war, he had been promoted to Captain.
After the War
Henry Brian married Mary Crosland at Southport in June 1917. Mary’s father who was called Joseph, had been born in Bradford and was initially[2]. From 1883, Jospeh was a commercial traveller for Seebohm and Dieckstahl. In 1921, although retired, he recorded that his employer had been Arthur Balfour and Co.in Sheffield. Seebohm and Dieckstahl was renamed Arthur Balfour and Co. due to anti-German feelings caused by the First World War. So it is likely that Joseph was with the same company for much of his working life. As we shall see Henry Brian was also an employee of Arthur Balfour and Co.
After the war he returned to Shanghai. In 1923 Mary and he crossed the Atlantic from Montreal, travelling first class. The passenger list noted that he was the ‘Manager of A Chinese Steel Works’ that his address whilst in England was ‘C/o Danneman, Steel Works Sheffield’. Other passenger lists record the similar information about his employer and occupation.
In 1929 Mary and Henry travelled to Mombasa in Kenya. This may well have been part of a plan to leave Shanghai as tensions with Japan increased in the years before World War Two
In 1933 he arrived alone from Montreal and stayed with his younger brother. On his arrival, he gave his address in England as C/o Arthur Balfour and Co. So it is likely that he met Joseph Crosland in his working life and at some stage was introduced to Mary Crosland.
There is a passenger list entry that names Mrs Mary Bates, aged 49 as a resident of Shanghai who planning to return to China. This may refer to Henry Brian’s wife. The journey was from Shanghai to Southampton.
Kenya
Henry certainly became resident in Kenya although we only know this because the London Gazette of August 1964 had an entry in the ‘Notices under the Trustees Act’ in referring to Henry Brian. He had died in 1959 at the Longleat Estate near the town of Kitale in Kenya. (Kitale is in the central west of the country, about 150 Km from Lake Victoria.) The notice also stated that Henry Brian was a farmer. Some 30 years later, the Kenya Gazette carried announcement that the Government intended to acquire .34 Hectare (just under an acre) of land that had belonged to Henry Brian. It is likely that the land had been abandoned after his death and this was the way in which it could be brought back into use.