William Adams was an English railway engineer. He was the Locomotive Superintendent of the North London Railway from 1858 to 1873; the Great Eastern Railway from 1873 until 1878 and the London and South Western Railway from then until his retirement in 1895. He is best known for his locomotives featuring the Adams bogie, a device with lateral centring springs to improve high-speed stability. He should not be mistaken for William Bridges Adams (1797–1872) a locomotive engineer who, confusingly, invented the Adams axle – a radial axle that William Adams incorporated in designs for the London and South Western Railway.

The Great Eastern Railway (GER) was a pre-grouping British railway company, whose main line linked London Liverpool Street to Norwich and which had other lines through East Anglia. The company was grouped into the London and North Eastern Railway in 1923.