Edward Adams (1814-1875)
1875 Obituary [1]
MR. EDWARD ADAMS was born on the 6th of June, 1814.
He began his professional career as pupil under the late Mr. William Parsons, Assoc. Inst. C.E., Architect and Surveyor to the county of Leicester.
In 1836 he removed to London, where he was employed for five years and a half by the late Mr. Thomas Cubitt, the eminent builder, who was at that time rapidly covering with houses the estate of the Marquis of Westminster, known as Belgravia.
Connected with building operations of the most extensive character, Mr. Adams had the best possible opportunity of making himself practically acquainted with the details of London house planning. So high an opinion did Mr. Cubitt entertain of his abilities that he intrusted Mr. Adams, then quite a young man, with the chief superintendence of the erection of the extensive factory at Thames Bank, Pimlico.
On leaving this employ he went abroad for a considerable period with a view of improving himself in the artistic part of his profession, visiting in this way various parts of Italy, Sicily, and Greece. While in Rome he was made a member of the Artists’ Club.
Returning to England, in 1846, Mr. Adams received advantageous offers from his old employer; but decided to establish himself independently as an architect, which he accomplished, chiefly under the auspices of the late Mr. M‘Clean, M.P., F.R.S., Past-President Inst. C.E., with whom he continued to be intimately associated during the whole of his professional career.
Among Mr. Adams’s undertakings may be mentioned a free grammar school, with houses attached, at Walsall, for which he was chosen Architect by competition, as was also the case with respect to the cemetery chapels at Wolverhampton; large pumping engine houses at Lichfield, and near Dudley for the South Staffordshire Waterworks; sheds for pumping and drawing-engines, church, parsonage house, and schools for pitmen’s children, for the Cannock Chase Colliery Company; station and warehouses, on the Furness railway; buildings connected with the Eastbourne water supply, and numerous other works of a similar character.
In 1857 Mr. Adams was appointed Architect to the South Staffordshire Railway Company, and in that capacity carried out stations, warehouses, dwelling houses, and other buildings. He also designed the station on the Birmingham, Wolverhampton, and Dudley railway, and various other undertakings, including baths and washhouses at Paris.
These works testify to the correctness of Mr. Adams’s taste and his knowledge of construction; for the rest, he was of quiet and reserved temperament, shrinking from notoriety, and leading a comparatively uneventful life.
Mr. Adams was elected an Associate of the Institution of Civil Engineers on the 7th of March, 1848, and he died in London on the 17th of March, 1875.