Frank Dawson Adams 1859-1942

Abstract

Frank Dawson Adams, who died in Montreal on 26 December 1942 at the age of eighty-three years, was one of the best known and most deeply honoured scientists in Canada and the western hemisphere. He was an original investigator of high eminence who had blazed a path in some of the most obscure and difficult fields of Archaean geology, an educationist and practical administrator who had for many years and on many occasions played an active part in directing the development of Canadian university life, a philanthropist who devoted his energies to the welfare of his fellow citizens and unostentatiously served many good causes, and a genial philosopher and companion, welcomed in all circles, scientific and industrial, and ever ready to lend a helping hand to struggling institutions and individuals in the cause of science and the amelioration of social conditions. Frank D. Adams was born in Montreal on 17 September 1859. On his father’s side he was a descendant of the famous Adams family who came originally from Barton St David (near Glastonbury), in 1638, and settled in Massachusetts in a district now covered by the town of Quincy. Several members of this family subsequently rose to high distinction in political life and two of them, John Adams and John Quincy Adams, were Presidents of the United States. Through his mother Frank D. Adams was descended from Colonel Dawson who served in the war under Lord Cornwallis and subsequently settled in Prince Edward Island, Canada. Some of the Dawsons were men of literary tastes and Dr Samuel Edward Dawson (an uncle of F. D. Adams) was the author of two volumes on the history and topography of the St Lawrence Basin and also of a commentary on Tennyson’sPrincesswhich received a high encomium from the poet himself.