William Adam (architect)

Early life William Adam was born in Linktown of Abbotshall, now a neighbourhood of Kirkcaldy, Fife, and was baptised on 24 October 1689. Adam probably attended the grammar school in Kirkcaldy until 1704, when he turned 15, and thereafter learned the craft of masonry, possibly from his father. It is often suggested that Adam was apprenticed to Sir William Bruce at Kinross House, although the dates make this unlikely. John Fleming suggests that if Adam trained under Bruce at all, it must have been at Hopetoun House which Bruce was building from 1699 to 1703. By 1717 Adam was a fully qualified member of the Kirkcaldy masons' guild, and before 1720 he travelled to France and the Low Countries, visiting country houses and viewing the canal at Ostend. On 30 May 1716, Adam married Robertson's daughter Mary, and the couple moved into his home, Gladney House, at Abbotshall. Rise to fame It is not known how William Adam became a successful architect from these beginnings, but by 1721 he was engaged on major projects at Floors Castle, where he executed a design by Vanbrugh, and designing extensions to Hopetoun House. John Gifford links Adam's rise with the retirement of James Smith, the most prominent architect of the early 18th century, who was in his 70s by this time. Like Smith, Adam was a trained mason, had social connections through his family, and had the financial backing of successful business ventures. However, unlike the Episcopalians Smith and Bruce, Adam was a Presbyterian Whig, in a time of Whig domination of the British government. Adam's beliefs were much more acceptable, although he did manage to maintain relations with the exiled Jacobite, and amateur architect, John Erskine, Earl of Mar. Adam's political stance allowed him to acquire influential patrons such as John Dalrymple, 2nd Earl of Stair, and Sir John Clerk of Penicuik, who, besides being his clients, attempted to secure government positions and contracts for him. For example, Sir John Clerk unsuccessfully proposed Adam for city architect under the "Town of Edinburgh Bill", which would have seen him overseeing new public works in the capital. In 1727, Stair tried, again unsuccessfully, to have Adam appointed Surveyor of the King's Works in Scotland, although the following year he acquired the lesser position of Clerk and Storekeeper of the King's Works in Scotland, under the Master of Works Sir John Anstruther. In 1730 Adam was appointed principal Mason to the Board of Ordnance in North Britain. In London, Adam attempted to make further political contacts, as well as seeking out an engraver for his projected book of architectural plans, which would eventually become Vitruvius Scoticus. Also while in London, he sat to William Aikman for his portrait. Architect, entrepreneur, and laird By 1728, Adam was firmly established as a successful architect with numerous ongoing business concerns, including coal mining, salt panning, quarrying and agricultural improvements, although in that year occurred the death of his partner and father-in-law William Robertson. For the same year, William Adam and Alexander McGill are called architects in the subscribers' list to James Gibbs's Book of Architecture. On 21 February 1728, Adam was made a burgess of Edinburgh, and moved with his family to a property on the Cowgate, where he later built a large tenement. His business activities continued to expand. Since the commission for Hopetoun in 1721, he had leased quarries near Queensferry which provided the stone for his building contracts. Starting in 1734, he leased lofts, granaries and warehouses in Leith, and leased coal mines and salt pans at Cockenzie, and later at nearby Pinkie he built a canal in 1742–44, to serve the mines. Other engineering works included an aqueduct cut through a hill at Inveresk, and in 1741, an attempt to promote a Forth and Clyde canal, a project eventually realised by others some 30 years later. His main concern from 1731 became Blair Crambeth, the estate in Kinross-shire, near Kelty, which he purchased that year for £8,010 Scots. Later life In 1741 Adam was forced to initiate legal proceedings against William, Lord Braco, to retrieve unpaid fees arising from his work at Duff House. There was no formal contract, and client and architect disagreed on costs for carved stonework. His three eldest sons were all involved in the family business by 1746, James and John both leaving Edinburgh University early to join their father. ==Architectural works==

, designed by Adam in 1735 Adam used a wide variety of sources for his designs, and created an inventive personal style of decoration. He relied greatly on a range of French, Italian and English pattern books, including Gibbs' Book of Architecture, from which he borrowed freely with little regard for consistency of style. During his nearly 30-year career as an architect, Adam designed, extended or remodelled over 40 country houses, and undertook numerous public contracts. He also laid out landscape garden schemes, for instance at Newliston and Taymouth Castle. Hopetoun had been built only 20 years before by Sir William Bruce, and Adam was retained to rebuild the south-east wing. These works, completed in 1725, aimed to give the east front a bold new facade, stepping forward at the ends with curved sections. According to John Fleming, "nothing so ambitious or imaginative had ever before been attempted in Scotland". Over the following years, Adam would return to Hopetoun, building the south colonnade from 1726, the north wing from 1728, and finally the pavilions from 1736. These were not finished until 1742, the year of the Earl's death, and the completed scheme was finished by Adam's sons after his own death. Adam also laid out the gardens, possibly to designs by Bruce, whose axial style they follow. in Dumfriesshire, a small house designed by Adam in 1729, for Alexander Fergusson Other early designs included Drum House, which boasted Scotland's first venetian window, and Mavisbank House, both near Edinburgh. Mavisbank House, constructed between 1723 and 1727, was the first Palladian villa in Scotland, a collaboration between Adam and the owner, amateur architect Sir John Clerk of Penicuik. The latter claimed much of the credit, and certainly criticised some of Adam's suggestions, although evidence suggests Adam got his way on a number of points. As at Hopetoun, here Adam enjoyed an unusually close relationship with his client, despite their differences of opinion. His most ambitious early work was the baroque, Vanbrugh-inspired Arniston House, near Gorebridge. Built for Robert Dundas, a lawyer and politician linked to John Dalrymple, 1st Earl of Stair, Arniston includes extensive grounds laid out by Adam, with a parterre and cascade, and a main avenue centred on Arthur's Seat to the north. Duff House, Adam's major work of the 1730s, demonstrates his accretion of local and foreign influences, presenting itself as "a medieval castle in baroque dress". Built between 1735 and 1739, Adam acted as contractor and architect to William, Lord Braco. James Gibbs had recently built another house for Lord Braco, but he declined the commission for Duff, recommending Adam for the job. The main facade of Duff House is remarkable for its height, and with the tall corner towers the impression is of a highly vertical house. This style is related to the designs produced by the exiled Jacobite Earl of Mar, an amateur architect who collaborated with Adam at the House of Dun. Chatelherault, the Duke of Hamilton's "Dogg Kennel" and hunting lodge near Hamilton, was completed in 1743. In the 1730s Adam extended Taymouth Castle and laid out gardens, although his work was largely demolished to make way for the present building in the 19th century. From 1746, Adam was acting as "Intendant General" and contractor, overseeing the building of Inveraray Castle to a Gothic design by Roger Morris. His role was to correspond with the architect on behalf of the client, Archibald Campbell, 3rd Duke of Argyll, and Adam also offered Morris his own advice on detail design. He also provided an early draft for the layout of the new town at Inveraray. His last architectural work was for Lord Lovat in 1744, for a new house at Castle Dounie. The stone was supplied, but construction never started as Lord Lovat was "out" in the Jacobite rising of 1745, and his property was sacked by government troops. Public buildings at Aberfeldy Adam's first public building commissions were in Aberdeen, where he built the town house, or town hall, from 1729 to 1730, since demolished, and Robert Gordon's Hospital from 1730 to 1732, now an independent school. One of the first infirmaries in the world, it was founded by physician Alexander Monro, and was demolished in 1884. Remnants of the building can be found on various sites in the city. Also in Edinburgh, Adam built George Watson's Hospital from 1738 to 1741, demolished 2004, which in the 19th century was incorporated by David Bryce as part of the new Royal Infirmary. He was engaged in 1747 to provide the mason work and brickwork for Fort George near Inverness, although the project only began shortly before Adam's death. Every summer until 1760, one of his sons spent the summer at Fort George, supervising the works under Colonel Skinner, the chief engineer for North Britain. Vitruvius Scoticus In the 1720s Adam planned to publish a book of architectural drawings of Scottish houses, including his own work and that of others. His Vitruvius Scoticus was started and named in response to Colen Campbell's Vitruvius Britannicus. He commissioned some engravings during his 1727 trip to London, and had begun to collect subscriptions. Further engraving were completed in Edinburgh in the 1730s by Richard Cooper. The project then stalled, possibly due to the lack of subscriptions (only 150 were collected, compared to over 700 for Vitruvius Britannicus), although it may have been revived around the time of Adam's death. In 1766, John Adam attempted to restart the project and collect fresh subscriptions, although nothing came of this. The book was finally published in 1812 by John's son William, and contained 160 plates, including 100 of Adam's own designs. ==Legacy==

William Adam's dominant position in Scottish architecture is reinforced by his lack of contemporaries. Colin McWilliam, in The Buildings of Scotland: Lothian, wondered "whether Scottish architecture at this period... would have achieved very much without him." Neither idiom however, owed much to the work of William Adam. As a practical man rather than a theorist, Adam never developed a strong enough style to exert a direct influence on the course of building design. His main bequest to architectural history were his three architect sons, and in particular Robert Adam, whose success as developer of the "Adam Style" far outran that of his father. Although Robert formed his own style through lengthy study in Rome, John Fleming detects traces of his father's influence on all three of the brothers' work, and suggests that the Adam principle of "movement" in architecture was partly inspired by William's admiration for Vanbrugh. More concretely, Fleming notes that working with their father gave the brothers a solid grounding in the technical aspects of architecture, and introduced them to a set of clients which they might never otherwise have had access to. Critical appreciation Although his contemporaries acclaimed Adam's "genius for architecture", recent architectural historians have found his work of more variable quality. In the 18th and 19th centuries, he was accepted as Scotland's "Universal Architect", and at the end of the 19th century, MacGibbon and Ross suggested in The Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland that William was "at least" the equal in talent of his son Robert. In the 20th century, a more critical view of Adam's work was taken. For example, Ian Hannah in The Story of Scotland in Stone (1934) found Adam to be "a rather ordinary classical architect". Arthur T. Bolton, in the introduction to his definitive work on Robert and James Adam (1922), dismissed the father's work as "heavy and ordinary", and a mere "compilation of ideas... from Vanbrugh and Gibbs to Kent". John Fleming lamented his "ad hoc improvisation from source books, improperly digested", and decided that he "cannot be allowed great distinction as an architect". John Summerson disregards Adam's work, in Architecture in Britain, 1530–1830 (1953), as it does not fit into the English Palladian orthodoxy, for instance at Haddo House. John Fleming and Colin McWilliam are in agreement that Adam was at his best as a collaborator. Fleming's comment that Adam "was at his best when guided by a man of taste who knew his own mind", is echoed by McWilliam, who suggests that William Adam "always did his best, but did his best architecture... when he was in touch not only with his source books, but with other lively minds". ==Family==

William Adam and Mary Robertson had ten surviving children: • Janet ("Jenny") (b. 1717), born at Linktown, later managed their brothers' London business. • John (b. 3 July 1721), born at Linktown, took over Blair Adam and the other family businesses, as well as practising architecture. • Robert (b. 3 July 1728), born at Linktown, architect, and best known of the Adam brothers. • James, (b. 21 July 1732) architect, business partner of Robert. • William ("Willie") (b. 1738) • Elizabeth ("Betty"), with Janet, managed their brothers' London business. • Helen ("Nellie") • Margaret ("Peggy") • Mary, married Rev John Drysdale FRSE (1718–1788), minister of the Tron Kirk with the rare distinction of being twice the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland (1773 and 1784), though now chiefly remembered for his friendship with economist Adam Smith. • Susannah, married Sir John Clerk of Eldin, son of Sir John Clerk of Penicuik. The birth dates of their five younger daughters are not recorded. John Adam passed Blair Adam on to his own son, lawyer and politician William Adam KC, whose descendants continue to own the estate, and have included several notable politicians, soldiers and civil servants. ==See also==