- Mrs Hughes: "You're as white as a sheet."
- John Bates: "It's my wonderful complexion, inherited from my Irish mother."
- — Episode 1.03
Mrs. Bates was the half-irish/half-scottish mother of John Bates. She lived in London where she was visited by Anna in 1914, who worked alongside her son at Downton Abbey. Anna was in London with Beryl Patmore who was seeing an eye doctor, but she was also trying to find out the truth about John and his criminal past. Mrs. Bates, upon meeting Anna, told her the truth: the true criminal was her daughter-in-law, Vera Bates. She said her son felt guilty for her ways, but she felt Vera was bad from the start. Anna later told Robert Crawley what she learned.
In 1914, John Bates informed Anna that his mother "liked her".
Sometime after the outbreak of the Great War, but before November 1916, Mrs. Bates died. She left her son money, "more than I (John) thought." John went to London for his mother's funeral then returned to Downton. Vera also learned of Anna's visit to Mrs. Bates before her death.
In September 1921, when John and Anna are going with the Crawley family to Duneagle Castle in Scotland, he reveals his mother's mother was Scottish, a Keith.