Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Adye, Stephen Payne
ADYE, STEPHEN PAYNE (d. 1794), brevet-major of the royal artillery, entered the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, as a cadet, in 1757, and was appointed as second-lieutenant in the royal artillery in 1762. He served some time as brigade-major of artillery in North America, where he prepared his well-known book on courts-martial, entitled ‘Treatise on Courts-Martial, to which is added an Essay on Military Punishments and Rewards.’ [Printed at New York, and reprinted in London, 1769.] The book went through several subsequent editions, the second appearing in London in 1778, and, modified at the hands of later editors, is still a recognised work. Major Adye died in command of a company of invalid artillery, in Jersey, in 1794. He was the first of a name distinguished in the British artillery annals for more than a century. Of three sons in the regiment, the eldest, Captain Ralph Willett Adye, who died in 1808, was author of the ‘Pocket Gunner,’ a standard work of reference, which first appeared in 1798, and has passed through many editions; the second, Major-General Stephen Adye, served in the Peninsula and at Waterloo, and died director of the royal laboratories in 1838; the third, Major James Adye, died in 1831. A surviving son of the last is Lieutenant-General Sir John Adye, R.A., G.C.B., now Governor of Gibraltar.
[Kane's List of Officers Royal Artillery (revised edit. Woolwich, 1869); Note to Off. Cat. Royal Artillery Museum.]