ABSTRACT
At Michaelmas in 1734, George Adams started paying rates on some premises in Fleet Street four doors east of the Shoe Lane junction, just round the corner from the family home. This event marks the start of the Adams instrument-making business, which continued in Fleet Street (at various addresses) for eighty-three years. The Fleet Street premises had a rateable value of £25, the same as the Shoe Lane property but comparatively low for a shop in a main street, so they probably consisted of a small lock-up shop or workshop with perhaps a small yard at the back. George's choice of this particular spot may have been decided by its convenient proximity to Shoe Lane, but in any case the land route from the City to Westminster `Cheapside-St Paul's-Ludgate Hill-Fleet Street—Strand was a favourite location for opticians and instrument makers in the eighteenth century.
