{"id":11426,"date":"2015-06-11T05:00:45","date_gmt":"2015-06-11T09:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.royalmontrealregiment.com\/?p=11426"},"modified":"2015-06-11T05:00:45","modified_gmt":"2015-06-11T09:00:45","slug":"adams-brothers-story-of-two-rmr-majors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/adams-brothers-story-of-two-rmr-majors\/","title":{"rendered":"Adams Brothers: Story of Two RMR Majors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friday, June 11, 1915<\/i><\/p>\n

Rest Billets,\u00a0Bethune<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Battalion War Diarist wrote for the day: “Lt. Johnston arrived from England and taken on strength.\u00a0 Men bathing and making great use of canal for water sports.”<\/em>\u00a0[1]<\/p>\n

\n

THIS DAY IN RMR HISTORY: \u00a0The Battalion history elaborates on these \u2018water sports\u2019\u00a0 – \u201cOn the day of the first water sports, a native gallery gathered to watch the fun, the good women of the town taking a frank interest in events, though puzzled by the embarrassment of the swimmers, who had counted on absence of clothing to keep the women away.\u00a0 That night the Battalion Headquarters emphasized its modesty by ordering all swimmers in future to wear adequate bathing suits.\u00a0 Bathing suits on active service!\u00a0 The men were dismayed, for nothing of the kind was obtainable, but soon some enterprising individual cut holes for his legs in a sandbag and the problem was solved.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 [2]<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Lieutenant<\/a>
A Canadian officer, Lieut.W.D. Adams, of the 14th Battalion,
Preparing to turn in after the strenuous days at Langemarcke and Ypres,
where they saw nothing like a bed for three weeks.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Lieut. William Douglas Adams and his brother Lieut. James Fellows Adams were born at St. John, New Brunswick, sons in a large and affluent family.\u00a0 After attending school at Rothesay Collegiate, the family moved to Toronto.\u00a0 William entered R.M.C. while James finished his schooling at Upper Canada College.\u00a0They were one pair of at least twenty one pairs of brothers to enlist in the 14th<\/sup> Battalion in 1914.<\/p>\n

MAJOR WILLIAM DOUGLAS ADAMS, M.C., M.E.I.C.<\/span>:\u00a0<\/strong>\u201cMajor W.D. Adams died at the Sunnybrook Hospital, Toronto, on 8 June 1960 [sic; s\/b 30th<\/sup> June 1960], after a lengthy illness. He entered R.M.C. [No. 720] from Rothesay in 1905 and was awarded his diploma of graduation in 1908.\u00a0 He was a Sergeant in his graduating year and an outstanding track and field athlete.\u00a0 He twice won the Silver Bugle and once stroked the winning war canoe in the R.M.C. Regatta.\u00a0 He took his commission in the Militia with the Victoria Rifles.\u00a0 He entered engineering in 1909 with the Grand Trunk Railway.\u00a0 He joined the active force on the outbreak of War and served with the Victoria Rifles* overseas.\u00a0 In April 1917 he was made Brigade Major with the First Infantry Brigade.\u00a0 He also held other staff appointments such as that of G.S.O.2 with the Fifth Canadian Division.\u00a0 He attended the junior Staff courses at Cambridge in 1918.\u00a0 He won the M.C. and was twice mentioned in Despatches.\u00a0 On his return to Canada in 1919 he became a partner with Adams Brothers, but later joined the Toronto Transportation Commission. He became associated for a few years with Walter Francis & Company of Montreal, and A. Bentley & Sons of Toledo.\u00a0 In 1939 he joined the Algoma Steel Corporation.\u00a0 He was a piling engineer for this firm at the time of his retirement in 1957.\u00a0 In the Second World War he commanded the 23rd<\/sup> Reserve Company of the Veteran\u2019s Guard.\u00a0 He was a life member of the E.I.C. and the Association of Professional Engineers of Ontario.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 [4]<\/a><\/p>\n

* Note:\u00a0 Although he had served four years with the Victoria Rifles of Canada, at the outbreak of the First World War then Lieutenant Adams was part of that Regiment\u2019s contribution to the formation of the 14th<\/sup> Battalion, Royal Montreal Regiment with which he proceeded overseas and served until late 1915 when he moved on to various Staff appointments.<\/em><\/p>\n

MAJOR JAMES FELLOWS ADAMS<\/span>:\u00a0<\/strong>James Fellows Adams, was born at St. John, New Brunswick in 1889 received his early education at Rothesay Collegiate, Rothesay N.B.\u00a0 After his family moved to Toronto, in Sept 1906 at the age of 16 he entered Upper Canada College.\u00a0 Upon graduation he enlisted as a Lieutenant with the Corp. of Guides, Toronto District.\u00a0 When the First World War commenced James joined his brother William in enlisting for overseas service with the 14th<\/sup> Battalion, Royal Montreal Regiment. He took part in the operations at Ypres, Festubert and Givenchy in 1915 and was promoted Captain in September of that year. He was wounded on August 1st<\/sup> 1916, following which he held a number of Staff appointments.\u00a0 In September of 1918 he went to Siberia as Intelligence Officer, G.S.O. 3 as part of the Canadian contribution of over 4,000 men to the nine month Allied intervention there.\u00a0 He returned to Canada in June 1919 with the last party to leave Vladivostok, and receiving his discharge in September of that year.\u00a0 Following the War he ran an engineering equipment business in Toronto under the name of Adams Brothers.\u00a0 He died in 1949 and is buried in Lakeview Cemetery, Kirkfield, Ontario.\u00a0\u00a0 [5]<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

[1]\u00a0\u00a0 War Diary, 14th<\/sup> Canadian Battalion, The Royal Montreal Regiment<\/em>, June 11, 1915.\u00a0 Library and Archives Canada, Ottawa\u00a0http:\/\/data2.collectionscanada.ca\/e\/e044\/e001089758.jpg<\/a><\/pre>\n
[2]\u00a0\u00a0 R.C. Featherstonhaugh, The Royal Montreal Regiment 14th<\/sup> Battalion C.E.F. 1914-1925<\/em>, Montreal, The Gazette Printing Co., Ltd., 1927, pp. 61-62.<\/pre>\n
[3]\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The Saskatoon Phoenix<\/em>, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Friday, June 11, 1915, pg. 1, col.5.<\/pre>\n
[4]\u00a0\u00a0 Royal Military College of Canada - Review Yearbook<\/em> , Kingston, Ontario, 1961, pg. 207 .<\/pre>\n
[5]\u00a0\u00a0 With information from \u201cThe Roll of Service 1914-1919\/ The War Book of Upper Canada College<\/em>,\u201d Upper Canada College, Toronto, Ontario, 1923, pg. 84.<\/pre>\n
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Friday, June 11, 1915 Rest Billets,\u00a0Bethune The Battalion War Diarist wrote for the day: “Lt. Johnston arrived from England and taken on strength.\u00a0 Men bathing and making great use of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11426","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-this-day-in-rmr-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11426","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11426"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11426\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11426"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11426"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rmrmuseum.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11426"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}