ADAMS, Harry Percy

1865 - 1930

Harry Percy Adams was born at Ipswich on 26 October 1865, son of Ipswich born Webster Adams (30 August 1840-11 May 1900), surgeon, and his wife Alice née Heal (9 December 1840-1 February 1888) and was the grandson of John Harris Heal (1811-1876), bedding manufacturer, of Church End, Finchley, with whom he was living in 1871, he was associated with Theresa Sophia Adams. Harry was educated at Epsom College with his older brother, Webster Angell Adams (1864–1895), leaving in 1879 for Gould House, Dedham, Essex. Harry studied at the Ipswich School of Science and Art receiving his excellent pass certificate and prize in 1884 and then studied at South Kensington School of Art and was articled to architect Brightwen Binyon, then of Ipswich. An architectural artist and a member of the Ipswich Fine Art Club 1887-1888 of Fore Street, Ipswich, but he had exhibited in 1883 a plaque also in 1886 a watercolour ‘Old Windmill’ and two monochrome sketches, ‘St Martin’s Church, Cologne’ and ‘Tomb of Sir Walter Scott’, he also exhibited at the Royal Academy 1888-1904. About 1899 a new pavilion-plan workhouse and infirmary was erected on the south side of Woodbridge Road, Ipswich to the designs of Stephen Salter and H. Percy Adams, the buildings were erected by George Grimwade & Sons of Ipswich and Sudbury, at a final cost of around £30,000. Harry specialised in the planning of hospitals and built the King Edward VII Sanatorium at Midhurst, Surrey and his firm, Adams, Holden & Pearson, were responsible for the Underground Railway offices at St James's Park, the sculptures on this imposing building, by Jacob Epstein (1880-1959), Eric Gill (1882-1840) and other artists, created something of a sensation when they were disclosed in 1929 and, for this building, the firm was awarded the RIBA London Architecture Medal for that year. Harry married at Ipswich on 22 May 1890, Cecilia Clara Staddon (1868–1891), who died in childbirth at St Pancras, London early the following year, aged 22, and secondly on 10 February 1898, another Suffolk girl, 23-year-old Alice Mildred Fulcher (born 1874), the former wife of James Francis Mathieson, a printer, who married on 7 June 1894 and divorced in February 1898, on Alice's adultery with Adams. They moved to 28 Woburn Place, Bloomsbury, but Percy retained offices at Tower Street, Ipswich. Harry Percy Adams was of 7 Knightsbridge, London, SW.1. when he died at Westminster Hospital, London on 7 April 1930, aged 64, leaving a wife and three children by his second wife, Percy Webster, Basil Mallandaine and Kathleen Mildred, he had a son by his first wife Cecil Clare Adams.

Royal Academy Exhibits
from Chestnut House, Ipswich
1888 1869 Ufford Font, Suffolk - architectural drawing
from 28 Woburn Place, Russell Square, London
1901 1580 The Birchmoor Lodge, Woburn - architectural drawing
         1679 Dorking Infirmary - architectural drawing
1902 1413 British Hospital, Constantinople - architectural drawing
1903 1684 General Hospital, Tunbridge Wells - architectural drawing
1904 1519 King Edward VII Sanatorium - architectural drawing
         1523 Medical Superintendent's House - architectural drawing
         1578 The Law Society's New Hall, Chancery Lane - architectural drawing

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Works by This Artist