Born 15 March 1850 at Rew Farm, Malborough, near Salcombe, South Devon, seventh child and third son of Richard Adams, yeoman farmer, and Mary Dorothy Fairweather his wife. He was educated at a private school in Exeter and entered St Bartholomew's Hospital. From the hospital he proceeded to Aberdeen, as was then the custom of those Members of the Royal College of Surgeons who desired to obtain an MD degree. On his return he served as house surgeon at the West London Hospital and became assistant medical officer at the Brooke House Mental Hospital where his cousin, Josiah Oake Adams, FRCS, was the medical super-intendent. He then began to practise at Ashburton, South Devon, where he was surgeon to the local hospital and chairman of the West Country Association. He moved to Eastbourne in 1888 and soon secured a high-class general practice, was surgeon to St Mary's Hospital, deputy medical officer of health for the borough and president of the Eastbourne chess club. He married in 1875 Annie Pewsy, by whom he had one child, James Wilmot Adams (1884-1946), FRCS, who practised at Penang, Straits Settlement. He died at Eastbourne on 10 May 1937, leaving £100 and his instruments to the Princess Alice Hospital, Eastbourne. Publication: Ileo-colic intussusception caused by an inverted Meckel's diverticulum. *Trans path Soc Lond*. 1891-92, 43, 75.