| Other Info | Herbert Mayow Adams MC was born in Sydenham, Kent in 1893, the son of George and Rose Adams nee Barnby. (His middle name is often mis-transcribed as Mayo or Mayon). The family took a five year lease on Blea Beck and moved in on 14 December 1910. They had previously lived at Hallow Bank. Both properties were amongst several in the area owned by wealthy local benefactor Mrs Amy Wheeley Lea, the widow of Charles Wheeley Lea, a member of the firm of Lea and Perrins the makers of Worcestershire Sauce.
The 1911 census shows that George Adams was a Civil Service Probate Registrar. Herbert appears on the same census as a student at Marlborough College in Wiltshire. Herbert was seconded to the Machine Gun Corps on 20th February 1918 and was with the 48th Battalion in Italy.
During the War he used rest time to compose and play music and could be found playing the piano in any rest area which had a suitable instrument.From 1919 to 1924 Herbert was apprenticed to Quaritch the London antiquarian booksellers. When Herbert married Geraldine Ley the eldest daughter of the late Rev Gerald Ley at Chagford in Devon in 1926 he was already the Librarian at Trinity College Cambridge, a post he was to hold for thirty-four years. After completing the re-cataloguing of the college’s library he embarked upon a search of all Cambridge college libraries identifying and meticulously researching early printed books. His studies culminated in the publication in 1967 of the definitive two volume catalogue of “Books printed on the Continent of Europe 1501-1600 in Cambridge Libraries. In 1949 the first volume of the Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society was published for which he wrote two articles the first on “Tables for Identifying the edition of Imperfect Copies of the Book of Common Prayer 1600-1640 and secondly “A catalogue of sixteenth-century foreign books in Cambridge” He also wrote about the “Library of Printed Books in Bassingbourn Church” Herbert’s “learning, application and modesty” were acknowledged when he was elected as an Honorary Fellow of Trinity College in recognition of his services. During World War II Herbert served in the Home Guard and the Observer Corps. He and his wife Geraldine did not have any children. He died on 15th January 1985 just a month before his 92nd birthday.
Was called up again on the 23rd August 1939 to serve in the National Defence Company (army number 95831). Resigned his commission on the 20th December 1939. |
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