Charles Coates

The Reverend Charles Coates was educated at Christ’s College, Finchley, before going to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he became a three-time rugby Blue 1877-79. He went on to become an England rugby international and played in the annual match against Scotland in 1880, 1881, and 1882 just prior to the start of the Home Nations Championship, which is now known as the Six Nations Championship.

Coates was ordained in 1881 into the curacy at St. Peter’s, Stockton-on-Tees until 1884, when he became a chaplain in the Royal Navy. After leaving the navy in 1891 he became vicar at Sand Hutton, York, and in 1898 became rector at Burton Agnes in East Yorkshire, where he remained until his death in 1922, just two months before he intended relinquishing his living due to ill-health. Coates was also rural dean of Bridlington for nearly 17 years until his resignation just a few months before his death.

As an archer, Coates dominated the Scorton Silver Arrow Challenge Cup in the three years it was held at Settle in 1900-02. He was also an excellent angler, specialising in fly-fishing. Coates served as a member of the Driffield and Bridlington Rural Council and died while convalescing on the south-coast of England in the Boscombe suburb of Bournemouth because of his failing health. Coates’s older brother, the member of parliament Sir Edward Coates, donated the rectory house at Burton Agnes to the Parish.