William Jonathan Adam is a clergy member of the Church of England. He was born on October 28, 1969. In 2022, he was named Archdeacon of Canterbury. Before this role, he worked as the deputy secretary general of the Anglican Communion and served as an ecumenical advisor to the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Education and family

William Adam was born in October 1969 and has two younger sisters. He attended Aylesbury Grammar School and studied theology and the history of the English church at Manchester University. He later went to Westcott House in Cambridge and was sent to the Bossey Ecumenical Institute in Switzerland for six months in 1993. Adam then earned a master's degree and a doctorate in canon law at Cardiff Law School. In 2011, he was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS), and in 2024, he became a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London (FSA). His wife, Lindsay Yates, is also an Anglican priest and currently serves as the Canon Precentor for Canterbury Cathedral. They have three daughters.

Career

Adam was ordained a deacon in 1994 and a priest in 1995. He worked in parishes in the dioceses of Oxford (1994–2002), Ely (2002–2010), and London (2010–2017). In 1996, while still a curate, he appeared in a television advertisement for Ford Escort cars. The caption in the ad read, "Will Adam has married 14 women since he got his. What do you do in yours?" It showed him adjusting his clerical collar. In 1998, he served as a youth delegate to the World Council of Churches Assembly in Harare, Zimbabwe.

In 2017, Adam was appointed the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Ecumenical Adviser at Lambeth Palace. He also held the role of honorary assistant priest in his wife’s parish at Compton, West Sussex. In 2019, he became director of the Department for Unity, Faith and Order in the Anglican Communion. In this role, he was responsible for and co-secretary of dialogues between the Anglican Communion and other churches and Christian world communions, including those with the Catholic Church (Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission and IARCCUM), the Orthodox Church (ICAOTD), and a new dialogue with the Pentecostal World Fellowship. In February 2021, he was appointed deputy secretary general of the Anglican Communion, based at the Anglican Communion Office (ACO) near Portobello Road Market.

In March 2022, it was announced that Adam would become the next Archdeacon of Canterbury and a residentiary canon of Canterbury Cathedral, following the departure of the previous incumbent, the Very Reverend Jo Kelly-Moore, who became Dean of St Albans. He was installed at Canterbury during Evensong on 18 July 2022 but was assigned back to the ACO for the Fifteenth Lambeth Conference from 27 July to 7 August 2022. In 2025, he chaired the Diocese of Canterbury’s Vacancy in See Committee as part of the process for selecting the 106th Archbishop of Canterbury.