James Yates (minister)

James Yates (30 April 1789 – 7 May 1871) was an English Unitarian minister and scholar, known as an antiquary.

He was the fourth son of John Yates (1755–1826) by his wife Elizabeth (1750–1819), youngest daughter of John Ashton of Liverpool, and widow of John Bostock the elder, and was born in Toxteth Park, Liverpool, on 30 April 1789. Joseph Brooks Yates was his eldest brother; another brother, Richard Vaughan Yates (4 August 1785 – 30 November 1856) was the donor of Prince's Park to the inhabitants of Liverpool. His father, minister (1777–1823) of the dissenting congregation in Kaye Street, Liverpool, which moved to Paradise Street (1791), was a noted preacher.

Receiving early training from William Shepherd, he entered Glasgow University in 1805, and went on for his divinity course (1808) to Manchester College, then at York, under Charles Wellbeloved. While still a student he acted (1809–10) as assistant classical tutor for John Kenrick. From York he went to Edinburgh University (1810), and Glasgow University again (1811). Before graduating M.A. at Glasgow (1812), he became unordained minister (October 1811) of a Unitarian congregation, for which a new chapel was opened (15 November 1812) in Union Place; he create a stable church out of previously discordant elements. With Thomas Southwood Smith, he founded (28 July 1813) the Scottish Unitarian Association.

On 6 April 1817 he succeeded Joshua Toulmin as colleague to John Kentish at the new meeting, Birmingham (see also Church of the Messiah, Birmingham), a post which he resigned at the end of 1825; and for a time he left the ministry, and resided at Norton Hall, near Sheffield. In 1827 he spent a semester at the University of Berlin, as a student of classical philology.

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