William Edwin Adams (11 February 1832 – 13 May 1906) was an English

Radical Radical may refer to: Politics and ideology Politics *Radical politics, the political intent of fundamental societal change *Radicalism (historical), the Radical Movement that began in late 18th century Britain and spread to continental Europe and ...

and journalist.Owen R. Ashton, �
Adams, William Edwin (1832–1906)
��, ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', Oxford University Press, Sept 2004; online edn, Oct 2009, accessed 18 April 2010. Adams was born in

Cheltenham Cheltenham (), also known as Cheltenham Spa, is a spa town and borough on the edge of the Cotswolds in the county of Gloucestershire, England. Cheltenham became known as a health and holiday spa town resort, following the discovery of mineral s ...

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

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, the son of a tramping plasterer. He was influenced by the works of

Thomas Paine Thomas Paine (born Thomas Pain; – In the contemporary record as noted by Conway, Paine's birth date is given as January 29, 1736–37. Common practice was to use a dash or a slash to separate the old-style year from the new-style year. In th ...

and Giuseppe Mazzini, whom he regarded as "the greatest teacher since Christ". He also believed that community self-government and community representation to be "the essence of all political liberalism that is worthy of the name". Adams believed that the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...

"was the greatest question of the centuries. It was greater than the Great Rebellion, greater than the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...

, greater than the

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...as great as any that has been fought out since history began".E. F. Biagini, ''Liberty, Retrenchment and Reform. Popular Liberalism in the Age of Gladstone, 1860-1880'' (Cambridge University Press, 1992), p. 72. From 1864 until retiring in 1900, Adams was editor of the ''Newcastle Weekly Chronicle'', where (under the pseudonym Ironside) he advanced internationalism, trade unionism, co-operatives and Lib-Labism. He deplored the rise of

socialism Socialism is a left-wing economic philosophy and movement encompassing a range of economic systems characterized by the dominance of social ownership of the means of production as opposed to private ownership. As a term, it describes the e ...

in the 1880s and after a serious illness he abandoned politics for local concerns. These included

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greens for workers, tree planting and free libraries and parks for the people. Due to worsening health, he spent winters in

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Madeira ) , anthem = ( en, "Anthem of the Autonomous Region of Madeira") , song_type = Regional anthem , image_map=EU-Portugal_with_Madeira_circled.svg , map_alt=Location of Madeira , map_caption=Location of Madeira , subdivision_type=Sovereign st ...

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

, where he died and was buried. A marble bust of Adams was unveiled by Thomas Burt MP on the first anniversary of his death.

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