COATES, DANDESON (1778-1846), the lay secretary of the Church Missionary Society, joined the committee of the Society in 1817 and from 1820 (on the retirement of the Rev E. H. Bickersteth) took up his residence in the Mission House. An able correspondent and a man of great business ability, he drew up the regulations for the control of the vast machinery of the Society, expounded the Society's point of view in controversy, and guarded it jealously against official church control. He became assistant-secretary on the retirement of the Rev Josiah Pratt in 1824, and lay secretary in 1830. From 1840, when the Rev William Jowett, the clerical secretary, retired, Coates was sole secretary. He had long been the ruling mind of the Society. He was against Bickersteth in the theological controversy of 1831, and was an uncompromising opponent of the various schemes to colonise New Zealand. On 27 Nov 1837 he wrote: "Only let New Zealand be spared from Colonisation, and the mission have its free and unrestricted course for half a century more, and the great political and moral problems will be solved." In evidence before the various parliamentary committees he adhered firmly to this view. Coates died on 23 Apr 1846.

G.B.O.P., 1838, et seq.; Stock.

Reference: Volume 1, page 99

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