At a Court meeting held on Thursday 21st September, the Court held a minute's silence in memory of Past Master Mark Adams, who passed away on Sunday 3rd September 2023.
In tribute, Immediate Past Master Andrew Parker, read the following eulogy as we fondly remembered the life and loves of a man that was forever passionate about our Livery and proud to be a Liveryman.
Mark will be greatly missed by us all.
The tribute to Past Master Mark Adams:
"I know we were all deeply saddened and shocked to hear of the death of George Christopher Mark Adams – commonly know as Mark. What was more shocking that after our last Court meeting in September we all believed that he was on the road to recovery after an extremely dangerous and innovative operation.
Mark was a wonderful man who was not shy of imparting his experience and knowledge to anyone who would listen.
Mark was the son of former Master - George Adams -and grew up in the meat industry as part of the Geo Adams & Sons pork business, helping grow the business to one of the largest and most recognisable names in the pork Industry. Famous for their pork pies and sausages. Mark eventually took over the running of the business when his father died and decided to sell the business to Tulip in 2007.
Mark was also deeply involved in the politics of the meat industry as he was heavily involved in the Federation of Fresh Meat Wholesaler, one of the pre cursors to the BMPA. This was an organisation of mainly family run meat businesses that not only came together to discuss serious issues of the day but frequently socialised together. I remember some fun weekends when I was a youngster with the Adams and Baker families amongst others.
Pictured: (left) Mark was part of the 'silver cleaning' and Fine Arts team when we returned to the newly refurbished Hall in 2019.
Pictured: (Right) During his year as Master in 2012, he proudly admitted his son George and daughter Mary as Liverymen.
Away from work Mark had other passions. One was his cars, particularly Aston Martins, a passion he inherited from his father. George Adams collected cars. When George died, Mark inherited many cars hidden in lock ups around Spalding; he did this to hide them from Mark’s mother. Mark never really knew for sure that he had found all the cars locked away as the were no records kept.
Another of his passions was shooting. This was a passion that ended up costing me a fortune too as Mark was the one that got me into shooting. He was the shoot captain for many years at a syndicate in Lincolnshire called Haverholme. He persuaded me to join the syndicate. It was quite a relaxed syndicate and could sometimes get out of hand. I remember Mark's frustration of trying to keep all the young Turks in order on the shoot. He also restarted a WCB shooting syndicate which lasted for 6 or 7 years. It stopped when Mark had to give up shooting due to his failing health.
That was the manner of the man - the glue holding things together in the background.
Mark's final passion was the Worshipful Company of Butchers! He joined the Livery in 1979 and joined the Court in 2000 then in 2012, like his father before him, became Master of the Company.
Mark dedicated a huge amount of time to the Livery, serving on or chairing many committees. Most recently he declared that this year would be his last serving on the Nominations committee, a committee that he had spent many years on. I am sure you will agree he appeared to be the most active Past Master with not many Court meetings missed.
Liz (Mark's partner) told me earlier this week that before he went in for his operation, he knew he would miss Common Hall but hoped he would be here tonight as the Past Masters' dinner was his favourite event of the year.
Mark brought financial help, support, a steadying and experienced hand to this Livery and he will be deeply, deeply missed.
Our thoughts go out to Liz, his children and grandchildren."
PAST MASTER ANDREW PARKER