Percy H. Bate was the Secretary of the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, a curator and writer on art.
Bate was the author of The English Pre-Raphaelite Painters: Their Associates and Successors (1899), Art at the Glasgow Exhibition (1901), English Table Glass (1905), The Art of Joseph Henderson (1908) and Modern Scottish Portrait Painting (1910).
In February 1903 Bate wrote to Whistler in the capacity of acting Secretary of the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts to inform him that it had been decided to make him an honorary member of the Institute (#01679).