Adams was born in 1586, at Wem, Shropshire, educated at Shrewsbury School and admitted as a sizar to Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge University in 1600.

He then served as Master of the Drapers' Company, sat as an alderman on the City of London Corporation, and was president of St Thomas' Hospital, which he probably saved from ruin, by discovering the frauds of a dishonest steward.

[2][3] In 1645, he was elected 309th Lord Mayor of the City of London, showing unusual disinterestedness, declining the financial advantages usually made by the sale of places which become vacant.

His loyalty to Charles I was so well known that at the start of the English Civil War his house was searched by parliamentary supporters, hoping to find the king there.

His descendants enjoyed the title down to Sir Thomas Adams, the sixth baronet, who died a captain in the Royal Navy in 1770.