Author: Adams, William Bridges
Biography:
ADAMS, William Bridges (1797-1872: ODNB)
The son of William Adams, a coach builder, and his wife Mary Ann Bridges, he was born in Westminster on 26 May 1797 and baptised at St. Anne’s, Soho, on 18 June. Nothing is known about his education but he likely worked with his father and studied with John Farey, mechanical engineer. On 30 Nov. 1818 he married Elizabeth, daughter of the radical Francis Place, in St. Martin in the Fields, London. They travelled to Quintero, Chile, where their son was born but Elizabeth died in about 1823 and Adams returned to London in 1826. In the 1820s and later he published some radical political works as “Junius Redivivus.” On 24 Sept. 1834 he married Sarah Flower Adams, poet and author of the hymn “Nearer my God to Thee”; they had no children before her death in 1848. He married for the third time on 2 Oct. 1852; he and Ellen Rendell had two children. Adams became known as a carriage maker and inventor and in 1843 he opened a factory in London that manufactured railway cars. His most notable invention was the fish-plate joint for railway tracks; it remains in use today. However he was not financially successful despite being widely respected. He died at Broadstairs on 23 July 1872. His other works include English Pleasure Carriages (1837), Road Progress (1850), and Practical Remarks on Railways and Permanent Way (1853). (ancestry.co.uk 1 May 2022; ODNB 1 May 2022) SR