William Adams was entranced by energy. As a young man, his interest was nursed by working as a clerk in a London patent office in the 1860s. This gave him an early look at some of the first British designs for exploiting solar energy using mirrors, water or both.Adams would later recount his excitement at reading about the French mathematician Augustin Mouchot’s invention of the first machine ever to run on energy from the Sun. The device, which connected a solar boiler to a specifically designed steam engine, was warmly received by Napoleon III when it was presented to the emperor in 1866.Inspired, Adams soon designed and patented his own rudimentary solar boiler. The only problem was, he needed more sun.When offered the chance to become deputy registrar of Bombay by the Indian city’s governor, Sir Philip Edmond Wodehouse, Adams jumped at the opportunity. There, he became the first Briton to design, build and test a fully-functioning solar steam engine fit for industrial purpose.But he also came up against the conservatism of India’s colonial rulers, who did not see this Bombay bureaucrat for the energy visionary that he undoubtedly was.‘The rays beat like missiles’Adams arrived in Bombay in 1873 to find it in the middle of a cotton boom, with mills popping up like mushrooms across the city. The population was growing so quickly that firewood was depleted for miles around. The landscape grew “bald as a billiard ball”, as Adams put it.Every morning before setting off for work near Bombay’s Fort, Adams would set up his outdoor laboratory at his home in the southernmost Colaba district, near the open sea. He instructed an Indian fundhi (skilled carpenter) to build a set of three-tiered wooden shelves to hold 18 looking glasses.“Each glass was moveable on a swivel in the same manner as an ordinary toilet glass”, Adams explained, meaning he could pivot each glass by “the touch of the finger”.Weighing bales of cotton, Bombay— 1908. Mumbai's cotton market history (19th-20th century) is rooted in the 1860s American Civil War, which triggered a massive boom by diverting global demand to India.This, along with the 1854 opening of the first mill, turned Bombay into a… pic.twitter.com/KgwVn5Ycr9— Ananth Rupanagudi (@Ananth_IRAS) January 31, 2026