Norman Coates
Lieutenant-Colonel Norman Coates MC (27 April 1890 – 21 March 1966) was a British army officer, School Head Master, and briefly a Conservative politician.
In civilian life he established a public school for the sons of Army Officers, and was elected to Parliament but lived well beyond his means and was made bankrupt – disclosing his highly dubious financial practices.
He was dismissed as part of a major clear-out of his Directorate and subsequently convicted of a criminal offence; his disgrace meant that he disappeared from public life.
[1] In the King's Birthday honours list of 3 June 1918 Coates was awarded the Military Cross in connection with the war in Egypt.
[9] After the end of the war he continued in the Army as Assistant Adjutant-General at the headquarters of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force in 1919, and then Military Secretary to Lord Allenby.
[1] Leaving the army in September 1919,[3] he held a special appointment at the War Office from 1920 to 1928, a form of volunteer reserve.
[3] Advertisements for the United Services College identified its visitor as the Marquess of Carisbrooke GCVO, and the Chairman as Bishop Shaw, and claimed three pupils had secured entrance to the University of Cambridge in 1922 as well as two to Sandhurst.
[17] When the Lloyd George coalition collapsed, precipitating a sudden general election in the autumn of 1922, Isle of Ely Conservative Association had no candidate in place.
[18] At a further meeting at the Regent Theatre in March on 30 October, a telegram from Capt Powell from Conservative Central Office was read out: General Townshend declines.
[21] In his campaign Coates pledged to bring about "real reductions in tea, beer and tobacco" by lowering duties on them.
[22] When the election result was declared at 2:30 PM on 16 November, Coates was successful, benefitting from a split in the vote between Coote and the Labour candidate.
In particular he sought the ending of potato imports, the provision of credit to farmers and the decrease in rates charged by railways for transporting agricultural produce.
Coates had to decide whether to pursue his putative Independent candidacy and arrived in Ely on 12 November, to find that rumours about "other reasons for the break" were current.
However he instead telephoned the Falcon Hotel to say that he was not coming as he had learned that the Conservative Association had a new candidate (Max Townley was selected)[30] and would withdraw.
[33] However, in February 1924 his creditors issued a petition for his bankruptcy stating that he was a member of the Bath Club in London but that "his present residence or place of business the Petitioners are unable to obtain".
Coates admitted he received the money and that no memorial had been built, but insisted that he was entitled to keep it as payment for services rendered to the fund.
He stated that it was his expenses as a Member of Parliament, renting a flat in London and visiting his constituency, which had led to his running out of ready money, as a result of which he had gone to moneylenders and ended up owing £1,836 to them.
The response of Home Office official Sir John Moylan was that Hunter's memo was based on "a suggestio falsi which convinces me that this letter must have been drafted by Col Coates".
[47] When Rudolf Hess was taken into British custody in 1941, Col A. Malcolm Scott was appointed as Commandant of 'Camp Z' which had been set up specially to hold him, and reported to Coates.
On 29 May, Scott passed on the news that the doctor assigned to Hess believed his patient was "definitely over the border that lies between mental instability and insanity".
[48] Hess attempted suicide in the early hours of 16 June, and Scott wrote to Coates that day to explain what had happened.
[54] Coates' entries in Who's Who and Kelly's Handbook to the Titled, Landed and Official Classes ceased at or shortly after this time[55] and his date of death is not recorded.
