William Yates (15 November 1792 - 3 July 1845) was an English Baptist missionary and orientalist. He created a Bible translation into Bengali.

Life

Yates was born in

Loughborough Loughborough ( ) is a market town in the Charnwood borough of Leicestershire, England, the seat of Charnwood Borough Council and Loughborough University. At the 2011 census the town's built-up area had a population of 59,932 , the second larg ...

, he was the second son and third child of William Yates, a shoemaker, and his wife Ann, ardent members of the Baptist communion. He was educated at

Loughborough Grammar School , religion = Christian , head_label = Headmaster , head = Dr Daniel Koch , r_head_label = Chaplain , r_head = Revd E J York , chair_label = Chairman ...

, where he showed an aptitude for

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

and

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

. In 1812 he went to

Bristol Baptist college Baptists Together (officially The Baptist Union of Great Britain) is a Baptist Christian denomination in England and Wales. It is affiliated with the Baptist World Alliance and Churches Together in England. The headquarters is in Didcot. Hi ...

where he decided to become a missionary. Yates set sail as a missionary on the ''Earl Moira'' on 24 October 1814 and landed at

Calcutta Kolkata (, or , ; also known as Calcutta , List of renamed places in India#West Bengal, the official name until 2001) is the Capital city, capital of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of West Bengal, on the eastern ba ...

on 16 April 1815. There he worked with William Carey on translations of

The Bible The Bible (from Koine Greek , , 'the books') is a collection of religious texts or scriptures that are held to be sacred in Christianity, Judaism, Samaritanism, and many other religions. The Bible is an anthologya compilation of texts of a ...

into

Bengali Bengali or Bengalee, or Bengalese may refer to: *something of, from, or related to Bengal, a large region in South Asia * Bengalis, an ethnic and linguistic group of the region * Bengali language, the language they speak ** Bengali alphabet, the w ...

and various other languages. Yates was at

Serampore Serampore (also called ''Serampur'', ''Srirampur'', ''Srirampore'', ''Shreerampur'', ''Shreerampore'', ''Shrirampur'' or ''Shrirampore'') is a city of Hooghly district in the Indian state of West Bengal. It is the headquarter of the Srirampor ...

when the missionaries there fell out with the British society and Yates moved to nearby Calcutta as a result of the schism. Yates became the centre of a controversy that helped to found the Bible Translation Society charity. The

British and Foreign Bible Society The British and Foreign Bible Society, often known in England and Wales as simply the Bible Society, is a non-denominational Christian Bible society with charity status whose purpose is to make the Bible available throughout the world. The Soc ...

refused to fund the publication of the new translation.D. S. Margoliouth, ‘Yates, William (1792–1845)’, rev. Lynn Milne, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 200
accessed 31 July 2014
/ref> The pivotal case was the translation of the Bible from Greek into

made by Yates and Carey after a decade of study. When Yates made the translation he had chosen to translate the word "Baptise" as "Immerse". This aligned with the Baptist beliefs, but not necessarily with every denomination's values. The new society was formed by the Baptists but the formation of new Bible translation societies proved divisive and expensive and they were eventually de-merged. On 13 January 1816, he married Catherine Grant, the daughter of a deceased missionary. In 1827 he returned to England via America but soon returned to India.

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

awarded him an

honorary degree An honorary degree is an academic degree for which a university (or other degree-awarding institution) has waived all of the usual requirements. It is also known by the Latin phrases ''honoris causa'' ("for the sake of the honour") or ''ad hono ...

Doctor of Divinity A Doctor of Divinity (D.D. or DDiv; la, Doctor Divinitatis) is the holder of an advanced academic degree in divinity. In the United Kingdom, it is considered an advanced doctoral degree. At the University of Oxford, doctors of divinity are ran ...

on 4 September 1839. Catherine died in 1838. In 1841 Yates married Martha Pearce, the widow of a colleague, William Hopkins Pearce. He set sail for England in 1845, but died ''en voyage'', three days from

Suez Suez ( ar, السويس '; ) is a seaport city (population of about 750,000 ) in north-eastern Egypt, located on the north coast of the Gulf of Suez (a branch of the Red Sea), near the southern terminus of the Suez Canal, having the same boun ...

References

* James Hoby,
Memoir of William Yates D.D.
', London, 1847.

Notes

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Yates, William Bible translators Translators of the Bible into Bengali English Baptist missionaries English orientalists People from Loughborough 1845 deaths 1792 births 19th-century translators Baptist missionaries in India 19th-century Baptists Missionary linguists