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Identity statement

Reference code(s)

GB0099 KCLMA Adam

Title

ADAM, Gen Sir Ronald Forbes, 2nd Bt (1885-1982)

Date(s)

Created 1939-1960

Level of description

collection level

Extent and medium of the unit of description (quantity, bulk, or size)

5 boxes

Context

Name of creator(s)

Adam, Sir, Ronald Forbes, 1885-1982, 2nd Bt, General

Administrative / Biographical history

Born in 1885; educated at Eton College and Royal Military Academy, Woolwich; served in France, Flanders and Italy, World War One, 1914-1918; General Staff Officer Grade 1, Staff College, Camberley, 1932-1935; General Staff Officer Grade 1, War Office, 1935-1936; Deputy Director of Military Operations, War Office, 1936; Commander, Royal Artillery, 1 Div, 1936-1937; Commandant of Staff College, Camberley, 1937; Deputy Chief of Imperial General Staff, 1938-1939; Commanding 3 Army Corps, 1939- 1940; General Officer Commander-in-Chief, Northern Command, 1940-1941; Col Commandant of Royal Artillery and Army Educational Corps, 1940-1950; Adjutant General to the Forces, 1941-1946; Gen, 1942; Col Commandant, Royal Army Dental Corps, 1945-1951; retired, 1946; President of Marylebone Cricket Club, 1946- 1947, Library Association, 1949, National Institute of Adult Education, 1949-1964; National Institute of Industrial Psychology, 1947-1952; member of Council, Institute of Education, London University, 1948-1967; member of Miners Welfare Commission, 1946-1952; Chairman and Director General, British Council, 1946-1954; Executive Board, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, 1950-1954 and Chairman, 1952-1954; Principal of Working Men's College, 1956-1961; died in 1982.

Immediate source of acquisition or transfer

Placed in the Centre by Adam in 1973 and 1976.

Content & structure

Scope and content

Note on the development of the Army rearmament programme, 1937- 1939; notes for the estimates speeches in 1941 and 1943 by the Secretaries of State for War, Capt the Rt Hon David Margesson and the Rt Hon Sir James Grigg, including formation of new corps, Home Guard, Dominion troops and prisoners of war; official paper entitled 'The Use of Manpower in the Army', 1941; printed circular letters from Adjutant General to Corps District, Divisional and Area Commanders, Dec 1942-Dec 1943; papers on Army education for the Armistice and Post War Planning Committee, 1945; reports to Army Council on overseas tours by Adjutant General, 1942-1946; typescript narrative on administrative aspects of World War Two, 1960.

System of arrangement

Arranged chronologically in sections as above.

Conditions of access & use

Conditions governing access

Open, subject to signature of Reader's undertaking form, and appropriate provision of two forms of identification, to include one photographic ID.

Conditions governing reproduction

Copies, subject to the condition of the original, may be supplied for research use only. Requests to publish original material should be submitted to the Trustees of the Liddell Hart Centre for Military Archives, attention of the Director of Archive Services.

Language/scripts of material

English.

Finding aids

Detailed catalogue available online and in hard copy in the Centre's reading room

Allied materials

Existence and location of originals

King's College London College Archives

Related units of description

The Liddell Hart collection contains a great deal of correspondence between Adam and Capt Sir Basil Liddell Hart (Liddell Hart, 1-4, 1937-1960); including a note by Liddell Hart on discussion with Adam and Col Bernard (Charles Tolver) Paget of Military Operations and Intelligence at the War Office on the reorganisation of the army to provide a co-ordinated defence (Liddell Hart, 11/1935/101, 1935 Nov 15); a note by Liddell Hart on further discussions with Paget and Adam, on the German threat and the problem of co-ordination between the services (Liddell Hart, 11/1936/64, 1936 May 15); a note by Liddell Hart on discussions with Adam,-then Commandant of the Staff College at Camberley-on army education (Liddell Hart, 11/1937/79, 1937 Oct 25); reflections by Liddell Hart on Adam's refusal to consult with him (Liddell Hart, 11/1938/7, 1938 Jan 9); and a note by Liddell Hart on discussions with Maj Gen Percy Cleghorn Stanley Hobart, 7 Armoured Div, Egypt, 1938-1939, on Hobart's difficulties in Egypt, with comments on Adam, at the time Commander, 3 Army Corps (Liddell Hart, 11/1940/5, 1940 Jan 17). The collection of FM Alan Francis Brooke, 1st Viscount Alanbrooke, contains a letter from Adam congratulating Brooke on the award of his KCB, Jun 1940 (Alanbrooke, 8/4/1/-17, 1939-1941); telegrams, 8-9 Dec 1944, between Gen Sir Claude Auchinleck, Alanbrooke and Adam, 2nd Bt, Adjutant General to the Forces, concerning implementation of the PYTHON scheme for repatriation of overseas forces and the decision to postpone return from India of certain Royal Corps of Signals personnel (Alanbrooke, 6/12/15, 1943 Feb 20-1944 Dec 15). Also, letters to Brooke from friends and associates including Adam, commenting on Sir Arthur Wynne Morgan Bryant's The turn of the tide (Collins, London, 1957), (Alanbrooke, 12/8/1-18, 1957). The Alanbrooke collection also contains correspondence and papers relating to custody and future use of Brooke's papers notes made by Marian C Long, research assistant to Royal Regiment of Artillery and Sir Arthur Wynne Morgan Bryant, mainly correspondence between Brooke's wife, Benita Blanche Brooke, and others including Adam (Alanbrooke, 12/15, 1963-1968). The papers of General Sir Richard O'Connor, contain a letter to Adam at the War in appreciation of his visit on 1 Jun 1944 (O'Connor, 5/2/57, 1944 Jun 2).

Publication note

The Imperial War Museum holds the papers of FM Bernard Law Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, including correspondence with Adam as Adjutant General from 1944 to 1945 (10 items, ref: BLM 119-121; one item, ref: BLM 97/38). Southampton University Library hold the papers of AF Louis (Francis Albert Victor Nicholas) Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma including correspondence with Adam from 1943 to 1946 (ref: MB1/C2).

Notes

Note

Compiled June 1996

Description control

Rules or conventions

Compiled in compliance with General International Standard Archival Description, ISAD(G), second edition, 2000; National Council on Archives Rules for the Construction of Personal Place and Corporate Names 1997.

This catalogue is made available under the Open Data Commons Attribution License. This catalogue may be updated from time to time in order to reflect additional material and/or new understandings of the material.