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Bill Gates Sr, lawyer who inspired and guided the philanthropy of his billionaire son – obituary

Bill Gates Sr and his son Bill Jr in 2003 - John Froschauer/AP
Bill Gates Sr and his son Bill Jr in 2003 - John Froschauer/AP

Bill Gates Sr, who has died aged 94, was the father and role model of the multi-billionaire Microsoft entrepreneur turned philanthropist – and in his own right, a respected civic leader in the family’s home city of Seattle.

Gates Sr’s professional life was the practice of corporate law in a partnership which became, by merger, Preston Gates & Ellis, and subsequently, as K & L Gates, the 12th largest law firm in the US.

He also served on many charitable boards and as president of the Washington State Bar Association – and in his later years he was a guiding hand in the development of the philanthropic empire created by his son and daughter-in-law Melinda with the proceeds of their Microsoft fortune.

The younger Gates recalled “standing in line at the movies” one evening when “Melinda and I were talking about how we had been getting more requests for donations in the mail. Dad simply said: ‘Maybe I can help.’ ”

Gates Sr in 2001 - Cheryl Hatch/AP
Gates Sr in 2001 - Cheryl Hatch/AP

The William H Gates Foundation, principally concerned with reproductive and child health in the developing world, was founded in 1994; after merging with the Gates Learning Foundation, it became the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2000, with Bill Sr as a co-chair.

Endowed with some $47 billion, including benefactions from the investor Warren Buffett, the Foundation is one of the world’s most powerful charities, leading global efforts in areas such as the reduction of infant mortality, the elimination of polio and the fight against Aids. Once described as “the conscience of the family”, Gates Sr played a key role both in expanding its ambitions and refining its model of focused, expert-led philanthropy.

Tall, gentle and courtly, Gates Sr cannot have found it easy to be the parent of a stroppy, computer-obsessed prodigy who at the age of 13 asked his school friend Paul Allen: “What do you think it’s like to run a Fortune 500 company?”

With the Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo at an Aids conference in Abuja in 2002 - Saurabh Das/AP
With the Nigerian president Olusegun Obasanjo at an Aids conference in Abuja in 2002 - Saurabh Das/AP

But the younger Bill admired his father’s work ethic and social concern, and acknowledged the “unconditional” support he received when he dropped out of Harvard in 1975 to start the software venture with Allen that became, as Microsoft, a titan of the digital era. Praising his father’s “wisdom, generosity, empathy, and humility”, he concluded: “My dad was the real Bill Gates. He was all the things I strive to be.”

William Henry Gates II (though he never used the “II” because he thought it “stuffy”) was born at Bremerton in Washington state on November 30 1925, the son of a furniture store owner of the same name and his wife Lilian, née Rice. Educated at Bremerton High School, he joined the army in 1944 and served in Japan after the surrender before studying Law at the University of Washington as a beneficiary of the GI Bill.

Having established himself in private practice and as a city attorney in Bremerton, he joined a law firm which, first as Shidler McBroom & Gates, and later as Preston Gates & Ellis, built a client base among the region’s rising technology companies.

'Bill Gates: A Conversation with my Father', in New York in 2010 - Joy Scheller/Avalon.red
'Bill Gates: A Conversation with my Father', in New York in 2010 - Joy Scheller/Avalon.red

One local entrepreneur who gained from Gates’s wise counsel was Howard Schultz, founder of the Starbucks coffee chain.

Gates supported scholarships for black students, raised funds for legal services for the poor, and campaigned for higher state taxes on the rich. In his last years he succumbed to Alzheimer’s, prompting his son to give large sums for research into the disease.

He married first, in 1951, Mary Maxwell, whom he met at university and with whom he had two daughters as well as Bill Jr (who is William Henry III). Mary died in 1994 and he married secondly, in 1996, Mimi Gardner, director of the Seattle Art Museum, who survives him with his three children.

Bill Gates Sr, born November 30 1925, died September 14 2020