David Beveridge Adamson (1823 – 23 June 1891) was a farm implement manufacturer and inventor in Adelaide, South Australia.
[2] Their principal products were wheat harvesters and strippers based on John Ridley's patent, and with a reputation for trouble-free operation prospered, and became Adamson Brothers around 1855.
The telescope which forms so prominent a feature in the arrangements of his house in Wakefield-street[a] is really one of the most remarkable specimens of the outcome of patience and genius which Adelaide contains.
He experimented for a few days prior to the event to get the clearest picture without frying the emulsion on the glass slide, and found he got excellent results by reducing the aperture of the telescope considerably and removing the silver coating from the speculum (curved mirror) so only a small percentage of the sun's rays was reflected from the glass surface.
Had he lived after the seizure to which he succumbed he would have been a chronic invalid, and that would have seemed intolerable even to a philosopher like him[6]Adamson married Emma Golding La Vence (c. 1831–1880) on 6 November 1849 at Tenterden Cottage, Adelaide.