Agar Adamson

Agar Adamson
Lieutenant-colonel Adamson c.1917
Born	(1865-12-25)25 December 1865 Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Died	21 November 1929(1929-11-21) (aged 63) London, England
Nationality	Canadian
Occupation	Civil servant, soldier
Known for	Commander of the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry

Agar Stewart Allan Masterton Adamson DSO (25 December 1865 – 21 November 1929) was a Canadian soldier who married the Toronto heiress Mabel Cawthra. He served with distinction in the Second Boer War and in World War I, and commanded the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry from 1916 to 1918. He died after an airplane crash in the Irish sea.

Agar Stewart Allan Masterton Adamson was born in Ottawa on 25 December 1865. He was the second and last son of James Adamson and Mary Julia Derbishire. He came from a well-connected Upper Canada family. His paternal grandfather was William Agar Adamson, an Anglo-Irish parson who came to Canada in 1840 and was chaplain to the Governor, Lord Sydenham. His maternal grandfather was Stuart Derbishire, who came to Canada in 1838 as a confidential agent of Lord Durham and was the first elected representative for Bytown (now Ottawa) for the Province of Canada. His father was a lawyer in Ottawa and clerk of the Senate of the Dominion of Canada.

Adamson had a privileged childhood and was educated at the private Trinity College School in Port Hope, Ontario. He then studied in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, originally planning to enter the church. He was an excellent athlete, played field sports and rowed, and won the Newmarket Stakes on his own horse. He did not obtain a degree.

After returning to Canada, on 4 February 1890 Adamson became a junior clerk of the Senate. He threw himself into the social life of Ottawa. In 1893 he obtained a commission as 2nd lieutenant in the Number 4 Company of the Governor General's Foot Guards, a militia regiment. He had reached the rank of captain of militia by 1899. Most of his military duties were ceremonial. On 15 November 1899 he married Ann Mabel Cawthra (1871–1943) in Toronto. She was an heiress and a talented artist, with an independent personality. They would have two sons. His wife's family owned a huge amount of property in the western part of Toronto.