Walter Adams

Who is Walter Adams?

Sir Walter Adams CMG OBE was a British historian and educationalist.

Adams was educated at University College, London and was a lecturer in history there from 1926 to 1934. He was a Rockefeller Fellow in the United States from 1929 to 1930 and organising secretary of the Second International Congress of the History of Science and Technology in 1931.

He served as secretary of the Academic Assistance Council from 1933 to 1938 and of the London School of Economics from 1938 to 1946, also serving as deputy head of the British Political Warfare Mission in the United States from 1942 to 1944 and assistant deputy director-general of the Political Intelligence Department of the Foreign Office in 1945.

After the war, he served as secretary of the Inter-University Council for Higher Education in the Colonies from 1946 to 1955, principal of the College of Rhodesia and Nyasaland from 1955 to 1967, and finally as director of the London School of Economics from 1967 to 1974.

Adams was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire in 1945 and Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George in 1952 and was knighted in 1970.