demolished Sunnybank, Woodbury Hill, in Loughton, where there is a blue plaque to the couple jointly. After Sarah's death in 1848, he remarried to Ellen Kendall, with whom he had one daughter, Hope Bridges Adams. Later life Adams died at Cuthbert House, Broadstairs, Kent, aged seventy-five, and was buried at St Peter's Church in the town. Railway engineering Dissatisfied with the scarf joints then in use for joining iron track, Adams invented the first railway fishplate, in the form of an unbolted wedge between adjoining chairs, in collaboration with Robert Richardson, a junior engineer under Peter Bruff on the Eastern Counties Railway. The two men patented the invention in 1847. Although the design was successful, with sales to the Eastern Counties Railway among others, financial difficulties forced Adams to relinquish the patent. This "wedge" version was soon overtaken by an improved, bolted design by James Samuel of the Eastern Counties Railway. Adams had patented improved springs for road carriages, which he called "bow springs". These could also be used on railway carriages, and the manufacture proved profitable. The manufacture was based in the Currier Factory in Drury Lane and Parker Street, Soho. The business was carried out in the name of Samuel Adams, Bridges Adams's uncle. In 1842 the factory moved from its small premises to three acres of land adjoining the Eastern Counties Railway at Fair Field, Bow. The company now traded as Adams & Co. He founded the Fairfield Locomotive Works () in Bow, East London, in 1843, where he specialized in light engines, steam railcars (or railmotors) and inspection trolleys. These were sold in small numbers to railways all over Britain and Ireland, including the Fairfield steam carriage for the broad gauge Bristol and Exeter Railway and the Enfield for his most important customer, the Eastern Counties Railway, with its headquarters at nearby Stratford. He supplied a 2-2-0 well tank to the Roman Railway. James Cross and Company of Lancashire adopted Adams's innovative radial axle box and spring-tyred driving wheels (elastic steel hoops separating the wheel felloes—rim segments—and the outer tyre) for White Raven, a 2-4-2 tank locomotive made for the St Helens Railway in 1863. The unconventional arrangement was initially deemed a success on the tight curves of the St Helens line, but after two years it was decided that the combination allowed too much oscillation and was replaced. Although Adams's inventions and writings became well-known,