James Bateman was born in 1811 at Redivals, near Bury in Lancashire, England and educated at Magdalen College, Oxford. He was a 19th-century landowner and amateur gardener. He was also a keen orchid collector. He was responsbile for several books on the subject including the Orchidaceae of Mexico and Guatemala, published between 1837 and 1843. From about 1840, he built a mansion and made a remarkably exotic, compartmented garden at Biddulph, Staffordshire, known as Biddulph Grange. He later moved to Kensington in 1860 and died in Worthing in 1897.
Sources:
Hadfield, Miles, Robert Harling and Leonine Highton, British Gardeners: A Biographical Dictionary (London: A. Zwemmer Ltd., 1980), pp. 29-30.