Thomas Adams (manufacturer and philanthropist)

Thomas Adams (5 February 1807 – 16 May 1873) was a lace manufacturer and philanthropist based in Nottingham.

Thomas Adams was born at Worksop, Nottinghamshire on 5 February 1807. His father (also named Thomas) was a maltster, a trade in the doldrums at that time. Not long after Thomas' birth, the family moved to Ware, Hertfordshire (his father's birthplace) to try to improve their situation. Thomas Senior died shortly afterwards, and his wife took the family up to the Sheffield area, where her family originated from.

In 1821, aged 14, Thomas was sent to Newark on Trent, Nottinghamshire to become apprentice to a draper in the town. After serving his full seven years, he moved to London. During this time he was tricked into going over to Paris, and was robbed and abandoned there. Through the help of an English lace merchant, he was able to make his return journey. Reflecting on his stupidity in later years, Adams felt that the incident had influenced his life from then on. Safely back in London, he had a brief time in the warehouse of Messrs Boden, a Derby lace company, before moving to Nottingham.

Thomas arrived in Nottingham in late 1829, opening business from a small house at 9 Stoney Street. On 2 September 1830, he married Lucy Cullen, daughter of a Nottingham businessman, in St Mary's Church, just a stone's throw away. He seems to have formed business partnerships, buying made lace goods and selling them on to wholesale and retail customers. In the mid-1830s, he was shown in local business directories as a lace manufacturer. Within 4 years, the business moved the short distance to 14/15 St Mary's Gate where, with successive partners, he was to remain for the next 20 years.

Adams had some reverses in trading, the scope of his business being reduced in 1843 and 1844 through a financial crisis brought about by the failure of an agent. In 1857 there was a fluctuation in the lace trade prompted by panic in America, and the American Civil War caused a worldwide shortage of cotton for much of the 1860s.

He was a hard and sharp businessman, strictly honest but often capable of striking a good bargain. Away from commerce, he was extremely generous, giving away large sums of money to charity, in particular, to religious and educational projects. For example, in 1846, he anonymously gave £500 to the Bishop of Lincoln towards the building of a school for the poor. Later, after the 1870 Education Act, he gave £500 and a further £400 towards the site for a new school in nearby Poplar Street.

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