William
John Bliss Adams
Born: 6 March 1886
Died: 1 February 1956
Married: Anna Marie Madeleine (Lena) Bach; 4 June 1910
Born at his father's cow yard in Little Lant Street,
Southwark, London, the tenth of his parents thirteen children. The family
then moved to Fawnbrake Avenue, Herne Hill, London when Will was eight
years old. He became a brokers assistant and then chauffeur, driving
a Gladiator car, and married Lena Bach, at Corpus Christi in the Strand,
London. The family moved to Chestnut Road, Merton where they lived until
buying the house his widowed mother owned in Bockhampton Road, Kingston
upon Thames in 1921. During this time he also had the use of his employers
mews house in just off Hyde Park.
|
He enlisted in the Royal Flying Corps as a
driver in May 1916 and was sent to Egypt with the 49th Balloon
Section of 113 Squadron where he was promoted to Corporal in Charge
of Transport. They followed the artillery as it moved into Palestine
to liberate the country from Turkish occupation. He was demobbed
in October 1919.
Under the scheme where ex-servicemen were
found jobs he gained employment with John F. Renshaw & Co.
as a driver in November 1919. Later he became foreman in charge
of almond supply, an important position in a firm whose mainstay
was production of marzipan! He and Lena had three sons, Albert
William (Bill) in 1911, Matthew Conrad (Con) in 1914 and Leslie
Sidney in 1927. He retired in April 1950.
|
Family group with (clockwise from
top left) Will, Bill, Con, Les and Lena.
October 1933.
|
Always a keen gardener he largely designed and built
a garden and maintained two allotments behind their house in Bockhampton
Road, Kingston upon Thames, a property he bought from his mother in 1921.
She had had numbers 33 and 35 built in 1899 and the family owned number
33 until after Les' death in 1984.
Last updated
17 January, 2003
|
