ADAMS, ROGER (d. 1741), bookseller and printer at Chester .
Although he may not have been a Welshman, Roger Adams, who was admitted a freeman of Chester on 20 Feb. 1713/4, merits a note as he was one of the earliest printers of Welsh books and ballads at Chester: his first book was (probably) Ystyriaethau o Gyflwr Dyn, 1724. In 1730 he had started to print Adams's Chester Weekly Courant, and in 1739 he printed John Reynolds, The Scripture Genealogy and Display of Herauldry. His widow, ELIZABETH ADAMS, who printed D. Jones, Cydymaith Diddan, in 1766, also printed a large number of ballads, particularly in 1752 and 1753.
Bibliography:
- Morris Parry, ‘Chester Welsh Printing,’ in Jnl. of the Chester and North Wales Archaeol. and Hist. Soc., 1915 and Gwasg Gymraeg Caerlleon, 1931;
- Ifano Jones, Hist. of Printing and Printers in Wales;
- J. H. Davies, Bibliog. Welsh Ballads.
Author:
Sir William Llewelyn Davies, M.A., LL.D., F.S.A. (1887-1952), Aberystwyth
