Fowler (1912: 481) named Paussus adamsoni after Adamson who collected it at Minhu, Irawadi when stationed there as a Colonel in the Royal Artillery.  Later he became Assistant Commissioner and Chief Magistrate in Mandalay before leaving Burma after more than twenty years. On his return to England he lived at Crag Hall, Jesmond, Newcastle upon Tyne.

Primarily interested in Lepidoptera but Chalmers-Hunt (1976) records that some British Coleoptera were auctioned by Stevens on 24 September 1912. Adams, who lived in Enfield for most of his life, was the brother of Frederick Charlstrom Adams and one of the founder members of the Enfield Entomological Society. He gave one collection to that Society and another, formed during the last thirty years of his life, of Lepidoptera to the Naural History Museum. This last (140,000 specimens) was given with the stipulation that it should be known as the ‘Adams Collection’.

Best known as a New Forest Dipterist (see his collections are in the Natural History Museum) but he did show an example of Cantharis rustica Fallen at the Entomological Society in 1892 (Proceedings of the Entomological Society of London 1892: iv) and I have seen beetles collected by him in the general collection at Doncaster Museum.

Published a ‘Systematic list of the Coleoptera found in the vicinity of Alverstoke, South Hants.’ in Zoologist (1856-58:14-16). Immediately after he seems to have travelled to the Far East, notes about the beetles he found there being published in Zoologist. in 1860, 1861 and 1863, and in Annals and Magazine of Natural History 1861. Nissen (1969) lists him as the Editor of The Zoology of the Voyage of HMS Samarang under the Command of Capt.