William Adams (1823–1904) was the Locomotive Superintendent of the North London Railway from 1858 to 1873; the Great Eastern Railway from 1873 until 1878 and the London and South Western Railway from then until his retirement in 1895. He is best known for his LSWR locomotives featuring the Adams Bogie, a device with lateral centering springs (initially made of rubber) to improve high-speed stability. He should not be mistaken for William Bridges Adams (1797-1872) a locomotive engineer who, confusingly, invented the Adams Axle — a radial axle box also used on LSWR locomotives. Originally called the East & West India Docks & Birmingham Junction Railway and opened between 1850 and 1852, the railway linked the docks at Blackwall to Camden Town. ... The Great Eastern Railway (GER) was formed in 1862 as an amalgamation of the Eastern Counties Railway; and also with several other smaller railways: Norfolk, the Eastern Union, the Newmarket, the Harwich, the East Anglian Light and the East Suffolk; among others. ... The London and South Western Railway (L&SWR) was a railway company in England from 1840 to 1923. ... Great Western Railway No. ...

Reference

Simmons, Jack and Biddle, Gordon (1997).The Oxford Companion to British Railway History, Oxford University Press.