ADAMS, CHARLES WILLIAM (1840-1918). Born at Buckland, Tasmania, Adams was the son of the Rev. H. Cay Adams. He was educated at Campbelltown School, Tasmania, and in 1859 entered the survey department of Victoria as a cadet. Two years later he returned to Tasmania, and in 1862 left for New Zealand, settling in practice in Dunedin as a partner of W. H. Pilliet (q.v.). The partnership being dissolved, Adams entered the survey department of the province of Otago. A year or two later he went to Wellington and entered the service there. In 1867 he was removed to Otago, where he rose to the position of chief surveyor in 1885. In 1897 he was appointed chief surveyor and commissioner of crown lands in Marlborough, which position he held until his retirement in 1904, when he went to live at Hutt. Adams was a man of high scientific attainments and took a keen pioneering interest in astronomy. He was appointed in 1879 the first geodesical surveyor in Wellington. In 1884 he observed the transit of Venus and total eclipse of the sun. He was for some years in charge of the Government Observatory, which was then situated on Mount Cook (Wellington), and collaborated by telegraph with an observer in Sydney in the task of ascertaining the true latitude of Wellington. This was finally established with an error of only seventeen feet between the Sydney and Wellington observations. Adams also discovered an error in the position of a star according to the Nautical Almanac and, the report being verified by important observatories elsewhere, the position was duly corrected. In 1888 with an official party he surveyed the Sutherland Falls, the height of which he calculated to be 1904 feet. He sowed garden seeds and planted strawberries and raspberries in the Fiords. For many years Adams edited the New Zealand Surveyor, to which he contributed many articles. He died on 29 Oct 1918. Adams married Eleanor Sarah (who died on 11 Dec 1934), sister of E. T. Gillon (q.v.).

M'Hutcheson, Camp Life in New Zealand, p. 89; Jourdain; Otago Daily Times, 27 Sep, 29 Oct 1888, 11 Jan 1892; Evening Post, 29 Oct 1918; The Dominion, 18 Dec 1934.

Reference: Volume 1, page 18

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