Charles Thornton Bate was mayor

Mayor

In many countries, a Mayor is the highest ranking officer in the municipal government of a town or a large urban city....

 of Ottawa

Ottawa

Ottawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario...

 in 1884.

He was born in Cornwall

Cornwall

Cornwall is a unitary authority and ceremonial county of England, within the United Kingdom. It is bordered to the north and west by the Celtic Sea, to the south by the English Channel, and to the east by the county of Devon, over the River Tamar. Cornwall has a population of , and covers an area of...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

 in 1823 and grew up in St. Catharines, Ontario

St. Catharines, Ontario

St. Catharines is the largest city in Canada's Niagara Region and the sixth largest urban area in Ontario, Canada, with 97.11 square kilometres of land...

. He founded a large wholesale grocery business in Ottawa with his brother, Henry Newell Bate, who became the first head of the Ottawa Improvement Commission, later the National Capital Commission

National Capital Commission

The National Capital Commission , is a Canadian Crown corporation that administers the federally owned lands and buildings in Canada's National Capital Region, including Ottawa, Ontario and Gatineau, Quebec.The NCC was created in 1959, replacing the Federal District Commission , which had been...

 and who was knighted in 1910.

Mr. Bate was mayor when Ottawa became the first city in Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 to be completely lit by electricity

Electricity

Electricity is a general term encompassing a variety of phenomena resulting from the presence and flow of electric charge. These include many easily recognizable phenomena, such as lightning, static electricity, and the flow of electrical current in an electrical wire...

, after nearly two years of debate (the move having been rejected as unnecessary by Ottawa's previous mayor Charles Mackintosh). President of the Ottawa Electric Light Company and the Ottawa Gas Company, Bate served on the first board of the Bank of Ottawa, which later merged with Scotiabank

Scotiabank

The Bank of Nova Scotia , commonly known as Scotiabank , is the third largest bank in Canada by deposits and market capitalization. It serves some 18.6 million customers in more than 50 countries around the world and offers a broad range of products and services including personal, commercial,...

.

In Ottawa, An Illustrated History, John H. Taylor wrote, "In the late nineteenth century, only the Ottawa merchandiser C.T. Bate, appears to have had any standing in the Canadian financial community".