b. 1810, d. 1870
photographer
British

John Adamson was a medical doctor and curator of the St. Andrews Literary and Philosophical Society Museum in Scotland from its formation in 1838 until his death in 1870. The Society was an eclectic group of intellectuals with a wide variety of interests; at its meetings, Adamson learned of the invention of photography from Sir David Brewster. Brewster, the newly appointed principal of the St. Andrews colleges, had learned about photography through correspondence with one of its inventors, William Henry Fox Talbot. Some of the first photographs made in England were exhibited at the Society's meetings.

Adamson primarily made portraits and views of the countryside near his home; he was known for naturalistic, lively renderings of his subjects. He also taught photography to his brother, Robert Adamson. Many of John Adamson's prints survive in the Getty Museum's Brewster Album, in which Brewster assembled early photographs made in England and Scotland between 1839 and 1850.