[1] He was the son of Thomas Bateman of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields, London, and his wife Mary Symmons, born in Scotland Yard on 9 August 1704.
[2][3] His father was assistant surveyor to Sir Christopher Wren working on St Paul's Cathedral, by 1701, replaced by John James in 1715; and died in 1719.
In 1732, chaplain to John Potter then Bishop of Oxford, he was presented also to Chevening in Kent; and the following year to Hollingbourne as a sinecure; and through his father-in-law held a prebend in Lichfield Cathedral.
In the same year, he was appointed Master of Hospital of St John Baptist without the Barrs, as successor to Edward Maynard.
[9] One in 1740, to the Sons of the Clergy on 2 Kings 4:1–4:2 , mentioned favourably Queen Anne's Bounty, against which the Walpole ministry had moved in 1736 with its Mortmain Bill intended to prevent charitable bequests.
The annual sermons to the Georgia trustees by this time had political content, and Bateman directed support to them in an address on Deuteronomy 33:18–33:19 (p. 11 of published text): "We do not say Gold or a Diamond is useless, because the Ore is rough, the Stone at first not greatly glistring".