Fatima Elizabeth Cates (5 January 1865-29 October 1900) was probably the first woman to convert to Islam in Merseyside, who came to Islam in 1887 at the hands of Abdullah Quilliam (1856-1932). Like many of the early converts in Liverpool, she showed remarkable resilience and steadfastness in the face of considerable hostility and harassment from some intolerant locals. She played a leading role in the life of the Liverpool Muslim Institute, and was the first treasurer of a mosque in Britain. At the time it was claimed, although it is not accurate, that, in the words of the Daily Dispatch, that "she was the first lady ever converted to Islam in England".

She was buried at Anfield Cemetery in the general Anglican section on 31 October. Her plot number is G5 418. Her grave was rediscovered by Maulana Hamid Mahmood in 2019, who had founded a madrasa named after her, Fatima Elizabeth Phrontistery, in northeast London. In Ramadan 2022, a local convert, Amirah Scarisbrick, successfully raised funds for a marble headstone to be installed at Fatima's grave on 4 November 2022, featuring some lines of Fatima's own poetry.