Joseph Adams was admitted to King Edward’s School in 1897, aged eleven. His father, Joseph, was the manager of the Grand Hotel, Birmingham. His brother Albert, also an Old Edwardian, served as a Private in the Honourable Artillery Company and survived the war.
At School, Joseph played for the 1st XV and was described in the Chronicle, March 1902, as “a light forward who knows the game, but might be more vigorous”. He left school in July 1902.
Joseph joined the Honourable Artillery Company as a Private in 1915 and found himself in France in July of that year. He transferred to the London Rifles, attached to the South Wales Borderers, and was wounded in October 1916. Captured by the Germans in May 1918, Joseph was taken to Friedrichsfeld Camp, Germany, where he died a prisoner of war on 3rd October 1918, aged thirty-two. Joseph is buried in Hochheim Hill Cemetery, Worms, Germany.