Gordon Bates [SEP] position held
Gordon Bates
Gordon Bates (born 16 March 1934) was the eighth Bishop of Whitby.
Ordained ministry.
Bates received his ecclesiastical education at Kelham Theological College, being ordained deacon in 1958 and priest in 1959. After a Curacy at Eltham he served as an Assistant Youth Chaplain in the Diocese of Gloucester, and then as Youth Chaplain in the Liverpool Diocese.
From 1965 he began a long association with Liverpool Cathedral, serving for four years as cathedral Chaplain. He served briefly as a parish priest at Huyton
school when it closed in 2009. Gordon passed on the position of Artistic Director of Ensemble Theatre to Sandra Bates in 1986, but remained Principal of the acting school until his death in 1999. Bates was joined by Mark Kilmurry first as her deputy and then as co-director, with Kilmurry replacing Bates upon her retirement in 2015.
The most successful play in the theatre's history is "Six Dance Lessons in Six Weeks", a two-hander which in 2006 paired Todd McKenney, in his first non-