William Adam was born on 30 October 1689, the son of John Adam, builder, Kirkcaldy, whose progenitors were hereditary proprietors of a small Angus estate, and his wife Helen Cranstoun. William Adam probably attended the grammar school in Kirkcaldy, leaving in 1704 when he was fifteen. He trained as a mason, possibly with his father. He was a member of the Incorporation of Hammermen of Linktown, Kirkcaldy from at least 1717 to 1734 (and probably before but the records of this Incorporation are fragmentary). In 1728 Adam was admitted as a burgess and guild brother of Edinburgh gratis. Probably later that year he moved his family to Edinburgh. He had given up even nominal membership of the Linktown incorporation. He had emerged by that date as ‘the universal architect’.
Unlike William Bruce and James Smith, who had Jacobite sympathies, Adam was a Presbyterian Whig and therefore acceptable to both government and to men of influence. He was on excellent terms with members of the Scottish aristocracy and leading figures of the Enlightenment.
At some point before 1720 Adam visited the Low Countries and Northern France. Clerk of Eldin (Adam’s son-in-law) later stated that Adam had brought a model of a barley mill back from his trip and introduced barley-making (probably at the mill at Saltoun of 1711). But his involvement in this must have been small. Clerk also claimed that he introduced the making of pantiles to Scotland. In 1714 Adam obtained a license in partnership with William Robertson of Gladney, formerly factor on the Wemyss estate for a tile and brick works at Linktown. Records show that he later supplied bricks and tiles at Donibristle and elsewhere.
In 1716 Adam married his partner’s daughter, Mary Robertson. They lived at Gladney House with Mary’s father. Of their children four sons (John, Robert and James who followed in their father’s footsteps and William who had a chequered career in the City) and six daughters (Susannah married John Clerk of Eldin) survived until adulthood.
In the 1720s Adam’s practice burgeoned. His emergence as a major player in Scottish architecture may owe something to the collapse of the architectural and contracting partnership of James Smith and Alexander McGilll.
Adam was supported by the success of the brick and tile works. He was equipped with a knowledge of construction because of his training as a mason and his knowledge was probably furthered by his trip to the Low Countries. His descendants’ library at Blair Adam contained a number of books published before 1720 (Vitruvius, Palladio, Serlio, Scamozzi, etc) and may have belonged to him. By 1726 he owned an edition, at least a fragmentary one, of Palladio’s ‘Quattri Libri’ and the first two volumes of Colen Campbell’s ‘Vitruvius Britannicus’.
During the 1720s, Adam’s patrons and friends tried to obtain for him government posts and contracts and almost succeeded but for the death of the king. In 1727 although he not officially appointed he was able to draw the salary of Surveyor of the King’s Works. The following year he was appointed Clerk and Storekeeper of the King’s Works in Scotland. In 1730 he was appointed Mason to the Board of Ordnance in North Britain, a post which brought him large military contracts after the ‘45. At the behest of the 2nd Earl of Stair and probably in connection with seeking appointments he travelled to London 1727. Sir John Clerk of Penicuik joined him in Stamford. Through Sir John and his circle of antiquarian friends, Adam met Lord Burlington and a number of Scottish noblemen. He may also have met James Gibbs (later a subscriber to his book). Adam’s trip to London was also to find an engraver to prepare plates of his drawings for his planned publication, ‘Vitruvius Scoticus’. It was modelled on Colen Campbell’s ‘Vitruvius Britannicus’ and was to contain plates of work by Adam and his immediate predecessors in Scotland. After he returned to Scotland in late 1727 Adam began to collect subscriptions for the book. Subscribers were difficult to find and this combined possibly with the slowness of the engraver and Adam’s own diffidence, the book was not printed until about the time of Adam’s death and not published for another sixty years.
It is not clear how so many prestigious commissions came his way in the 1720s. It may have been through his patronage of Sir John Clerk or of Adam’s ‘great friend’ the second earl of Stair. He was employed by John Ker, first duke of Roxburgh at Floors. Although paid as a mason there, he later claimed to have designed the building. In the room ratios, pedimented towers and union of pavilions with the centre, he seems to have been referring to Palladio. He worked at Hopetoun House in the 1720s which involved ‘taking down the old house’; and he and his sons were to continue working there until the 1750s. A few years later he made additions at Newliston, where the second Earl of Stair was ‘making a canal and several very grand improvements’, very probably designed by Adam as well as working at Dalmahoy, Redbraes, Craigdarroch, The Drum and Arniston to name but a few.
Although Stair was unable to afford a new house, Adam had better luck with Sir John Clerk at Mavisbank, which was a villa and occasional residence of Sir John. It has been observed that Mavisbank with its awkward proportions, banded pilasters and excess of carving is unlike contemporary English villas. Adam’s approach was pragmatic. He drew detail from a range of sources with considerable freedom and inventiveness. He applied whatever style or detailing he chose to each separate commission, drawing both on his Scottish past but also on recent classical architecture from England and the Continent. Despite his friendship with Sir John Clerk, he had little taste for the English neo-Palladian architecture. The work of Gibbs and Vanbrugh were influential but he also used Continental Baroque as a source.
Adam’s work in the 1720s was not confined to architecture. Adam often acted as landscape gardener, for example at Newliston, Hopetoun, Arniston and Craigston. Alongside this he had business interests some of which had been inherited from his father. Along with the Linktown brickworks and the barley mills, he had, according to Sir John Clerk in 1728 nearly twenty projects in hand: ‘Timber Mills, Coal Works, Salt Pans, Marble Works, Highways, Farms, houses of his own a-building and houses belonging to others not a few’. His enterprises included the ownership of a quarry at South Queensferry, the stone from which could be easily shipped anywhere by sea. Although some of his friends and patrons considered that he might have over-stretched himself, he accumulated considerable wealth. He invested this in house property in Edinburgh and in acquiring the estate of Blair Crambeth in Kinross-shire which he purchased in 1731 for £8010 Scots and renamed it Blair Adam.
That Adam’s status was very high by about 1730 is shown by the fact that Lord Polwarth in considering remodelling Redbraes Castle consulted Colen Campbell and James Gibbs, two of the most fashionable architects in London and from French architects but was also advised to consult William Adam as well. The list below shows the extent of his practice.
Adam’s life in the 1740s was dogged by the dispute with William Duff, Lord Braco. Lord Braco had employed Adam at Banff in 1730. By 1735 he had decided to build a new house which was begun in June of that year. Adam initiated the proceedings because Lord Braco had not paid his account. He claimed he was due the sum of £5,786 12s 11d, the principal point at issue was whether Adam had been the contractor for the mason work as well as the architect. Adam was clearly in the right but it is not clear if Lord Braco misunderstood or if because of some falling out, he intended to ruin the architect. The dispute dragged on until almost the end of Adam’s life.
Adam’s later works consisted of strengthening of fortifications in the wake of the ’45, and a series of public buildings. His last country house, Inveraray, designed by Roger Morris but executed by Adam was when completed the first major manifestation of the Gothic Revival.
Adam, nicknamed ‘Old Stone and Lime’ by his children died in Edinburgh on 24 June 1748 and was buried in the family mausoleum in Greyfriars Kirkyard. His business enterprises were continued by John Adam while his architectural practice was extended by Robert and James in Edinburgh and London.
There is an oil painting of Adam at Blair Adam and a bust in the SNPG.