Donald Adamson
Donald Adamson (born 30 March 1939 at Culcheth, Lancashire) is a British historian, philosophical writer and literary critic.
He is the author of Blaise Pascal: Mathematician, Physicist and Thinker about God (1995), a book detailing the concept of the existence of God and a study of Pascal’s Wager.[1]
Adamson has written on French history, and histories of the City of London,[2] a ducal family,[3] travel,[4] finance,[5] and art. He also wrote about the novels of Honoré de Balzac.[6] He has translated many short stories of Guy de Maupassant[7] into English.
Adamson aids the cause of museums and libraries in the UK.[8] From 1983 to 1992 he served as a Justice of the Peace for the City of London.
Adamson studied at the University of Oxford. He taught at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, as well as Paris and London Universities. He also is a member of a Cambridge College where he conducts research.
2012-13 Donald Adamson was Master of the Curriers’ Company, a London Livery Company. He established a Curriers' Co. biennial award for graduates of British universities to write an essay on the history of London, as well as sixteen annual prizes in mathematics and history for pupils aged 14 to 15 at four London Academies.
Fellowships and honours[change | change source]
- Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature
- Fellow of the Royal Historical Society
- Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London
- Chevalier, Ordre des Palmes académiques
- Knight of Justice, Order of St John of Jerusalem[9]
- Service Medal, Order of St John (with Bar)
- Cross of Merit, Order Pro Merito Melitensi
- JP for the City of London, later Cornwall.
References[change | change source]
- ↑ Donald Adamson, Blaise Pascal: Mathematician, Physicist, and Thinker about God, 1995, pp. 143-160.
- ↑ Donald Adamson, The Curriers' Company: A Modern History, 2000.
- ↑ Donald Adamson, The House of Nell Gwyn: The Fortunes of the Beauclerk Family, 1670-1974, 1974.
- ↑ Rides Round Britain: The Travel Journals of John Byng, 1996.
- ↑ 'Child's Bank and Oxford University in the Eighteenth Century', The Three Banks Review, December 1982, pp. 45-52.
- ↑ e.g., Donald Adamson, Balzac: Illusions perdues, 1981.
- ↑ Guy de Maupassant, Bed 29 and Other Stories, 1993.
- ↑ Hansard, Expenditure Committee, Third Report, Session 1977-78, pp. 128-136, 30 November 1977.
- ↑ The London Gazette, 22 July 1998, p. 7984, col. 1.