3rd July 1728

Designer Robert Adam is born

The work of interior designer and furniture designer Robert Adam is still admired to this day. His works include Edinburgh’s Royal Exchange, Pulteney Bridge in Bath, the Theatre Royal on London’s Drury Lane, the Old College of the University of Edinburgh, and Osterley Park in London.

Robert Adam was born in Kirkcaldy and educated at the University of Edinburgh. He was an apprentice to his father, architect William Adam, and upon his father’s death he took over the family business, which made him responsible for many contracts for the maintenance of state buildings and the building of Fort George at Inverness.

Architectural success

Robert and his brother James, who was employed in the same business, later moved to England where they had great success as architects and interior designers, in part because they designed every element, both inside and out, to work as part of a greater whole.

In April 1768, Robert was elected the MP for Kinross-shire. He died on 3 March 1792 of a stomach ulcer that had burst two days earlier. He was in London at the time and is buried in Westminster Abbey.

Robert Adam’s death

His death was announced in Jackson’s Oxford Journal on 10 March 1792, with the Journal noting that “the many elegant buildings, publick [sic] and private, erected in various parts of the kingdom by Mr Adam, will remain lasting ornaments of his taste and genius. Mr Adam, after his return from Italy, was appointed Architect to his Majesty in the year 1762; which office being incompatible with a seat in Parliament, he resigned in 1768, on his being elected to represent the county of Kinross.”

The Caledonian Mercury of 15 March 1792 gave an account of his funeral, which was “attended only by a select number of his friends, who esteemed him while living and wished to bestow the mark of their regard.”