The Dictionary of Australasian Biography/Adams, Philip Francis
Adams, Philip Francis, ex-Surveyor General, New South Wales, was born in Suffolk in 1828. Ten years later his family removed to the north of Ireland, and he was educated at the Belfast Institution. In 1851 he emigrated to Canada, and subsequently had an unlucky experience at the Californian diggings. He came to Sydney in 1854, and was Government Land Surveyor for the Maitland district till 1857. He was afterwards connected with the Trigonometrical Survey of New South Wales. In 1864 he was appointed Deputy Surveyor General, and Surveyor General on March 17th, 1868. Mr. Adams retired on a pension, and was a member of the New South Wales Commission in Sydney for the Colonial and Indian Exhibition of 1886.