Gates, Frederick T(aylor) (1853–1929)

US clergyman and businessman. A Baptist minister, his first church was in Minneapolis, Minnesota (1881). In 1888 he resigned and became secretary of the American Baptist Education Society, in which position he helped reorganize the University of Chicago. In doing so he earned the respect of John D Rockefeller, the principal benefactor of the new university, and in 1891 he was engaged by Rockefeller to aid in managing his philanthropic activities. In this capacity Gates set up the General Education Board and the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research and helped establish the Rockefeller Foundation (1913). He was born in Maine, New York.