Eugene William Oates (31 December 1845 – 16 November 1911) was an English naturalist and a civil engineer who worked on road projects in Burma.

Oates was born in Sicily and educated in Bath, England.

For a time he attended Sydney College, Bath and later under private tutors.

[1] He was a civil servant in the Public Works Department in India and Burma from 1867 to 1899.

He retired to England, where he compiled a catalogue of the birds' eggs in the Natural History Museum, and served as secretary of the British Ornithologists' Union from 1898 to 1901.