February 1723 19 April 1791) was a Welshmoral philosopherand nonconformistpreacher. He was also a politicalpamphleteer, active in radical, republican, and liberal causes such as theAmerican Revolution. He was well-connected and fostered communication between a large number of people, includingFounding Fathers of the United States.

Price spent most of his adult life as minister inNewington Green. He also wrote on issues ofdemographyandfinance, and was aFellow of the Royal Society.

Contents

[hide] 1Early life 2Newington Green congregation 3Friends and associates 3.1Bowood circle 3.2"Club of Honest Whigs" 3.3Visitors 3.4Theologians 3.5Mary Wollstonecraft 4The American Revolution 5French Revolution controversy 6Later life 7Publications 7.1Thomas Bayes 7.2Demographer 7.3Public finance 7.4Moral philosophy 7.5Other works 8See also 9Notes 10References 11Further reading 12External linksEarly life[edit]

5255 Newington Green, including the houses of Price and Rogers. This is the oldest brick terrace in London.

Price was born in Tynton,Llangeinor,Glamorgan, the son of Rice Price, a dissenting minister, and his second wife Catherine Richards. He was educated privately, then atNeathandPen-twyn. He studied under Vavasor Griffiths at Chancefield,Talgarth.[1]before being sent toJohn Eamesand thedissenting academyinMoorfields,London.[2]

HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Price" \l "cite_note-3" [3]Leaving the academy in 1744, Price becamechaplainand companion to George Streatfield atStoke Newington, then a village just north of London. He also held the lectureship atOld Jewry, whereSamuel Chandlerwas minister.[2]

HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Price" \l "cite_note-4" [4]Streatfield's death and that of an uncle in 1757 improved his circumstances, and on 16 June 1757 he married Sarah Blundell, originally ofBelgraveinLeicestershire.[5]Newington Green congregation[edit]In 1758 Price moved toNewington Green, and took up residence in No. 54 the Green, in the middle of a terrace even then a hundred years old. (The building still survives as London's oldest brick terrace, dated 1658.) Price became minister to theNewington Green meeting-house, a church that continues today. Among the congregation wereSamuel Vaughanand his family.[6]Price hadThomas Amoryas preaching colleague from 1770.[7]When, in 1770, Price became morning preacher at theGravel Pit ChapelinHackney, he continued his afternoon sermons at Newington Green. He also accepted duties at the meeting house in Old Jewry.

Friends and associates[edit]A close friend of Price was Thomas Rogers, father ofSamuel Rogers, a merchant turned banker who had married into a long-established Dissenting family and lived at No. 56 the Green. More than once, Price and the elder Rogers rode on horseback to Wales.[8]Another was the Rev.James Burgh, author ofThe Dignity of Human NatureandThoughts on Education, who opened his Dissenting Academy on the green in 1750 and sent his pupils to Price's sermons.[9]Price, Rogers, and Burgh formed a dining club, eating at each other's houses in rotation.[10]Price and Rogers joined theSociety for Constitutional Information.[11]Bowood circle[edit]The "Bowood circle" was a group of liberal intellectuals aroundLord Shelburne, and named afterBowood House, his seat inWiltshire. Price met Shelburne in or shortly after 1767,[12]or was introduced byElizabeth Montaguafter the publication of hisFour Dissertations.[13]In 1771 Price had Shelburne employThomas Jervis.[14]Another member of the circle wasBenjamin Vaughan.[15]In 1772 Price recruitedJoseph Priestley, who came to work for Shelburne as librarian from 1773.[16]

HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Price" \l "cite_note-17" [17]

HYPERLINK "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Price" \l "cite_note-18" [18]"Club of Honest Whigs"[edit]The group thatBenjamin Franklinchristened the "Club of Honest Whigs" was an informal dining group aroundJohn Canton. It met originally inSt Paul's Churchyard, at the London Coffee House; in 1771 it moved toLudgate Hill. Price andSir John Pringlewere members, as were Priestley and Benjamin Vaughan.[19]Visitors[edit]At home, or at his church itself, Price was visited by Franklin,Thomas Jefferson, andThomas Paine;[20]other American politicians such asJohn Adams, who later became the secondpresident of the United States, and his wifeAbigail; and British politicians such asLord Lyttleton,Earl Stanhope(known as "Citizen Stanhope"), andWilliam Pitt the Elder. He knew also the philosophersDavid HumeandAdam Smith. Among activists, the prison reformerJohn Howardcounted Price as a close friend;[21]also there wereJohn Horne Tooke, andJohnandAnn Jebb.[8]Theologians[edit]

Joseph Priestley, Richard Price and Theophilus Lindsay in the pulpit, in a 1790 engraving satirising the campaign to have theTest Actrepealed

Others acknowledged their debt to Price, such as the Unitarian theologiansWilliam Ellery ChanningandTheophilus Lindsey. When Lindsey resigned his living and moved to London to create an avowedly Unitarian congregation Price played a role in finding and securing the premises for what becameEssex Street Chapel.[22]At the end of the 1770s Price and Lindsey were concerned about the contraction of dissent, at least in the London area.[23]WithAndrew Kippisand others, they established theSociety for Promoting Knowledge of the Scripturesin 1783.[24]Price and Priestley took diverging views on morals andmetaphysics. In 1778 appeared a published correspondence,A Free Discussion on the Doctrines of Materialism and Philosophical Necessity. Price maintained, in opposition to Priestley, the free agency of man and the unity and immateriality of the human soul. Price's opinions wereArian, Priestley's wereSocinian.[25]Mary Wollstonecraft[edit]

Mary Wollstonecraft(c. 1797)

Mary Wollstonecraftmoved her fledgling school for girls fromIslingtonto Newington Green in 1784,[26]with patron Mrs Burgh, widow of Price's friend James Burgh.[27]Wollstonecraft, anAnglican, attended Price's services, where believers of all kinds were welcomed.[28]TheRational Dissentersappealed to Wollstonecraft: they were hard-working, humane, critical but uncynical, and respectful towards women,[29]and proved kinder to her than her own family.[28]Price is believed to have helped her with money to go toLisbonto see her close friend Fanny Blood.[30]Wollstonecraft was then unpublished: through Price she met the radical publisherJoseph Johnson. The ideas Wollstonecraft ingested from the sermons at Newington Green pushed her towards a political awakening.[31]She later publishedA Vindication of the Rights of Men(1790), a response toBurke's denunciation of the French Revolution and attack on Price; andA Vindication of the Rights of Woman(1792), extending Price's arguments about equality to women:Tomalinargues that just as the Dissenters were "excluded as a class from education and civil rights by a lazy-minded majority", so too were women, and the "character defects of both groups" could be attributed to this discrimination.[32]Price appears 14 times in the diary ofWilliam Godwin, Wollstonecraft's later husband.[33]