PRICE, Richard (1720-75), of Rhiwlas, Merioneth.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1754-1790, ed. L. Namier, J. Brooke., 1964
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

1754 - 1768

Family and Education

b. May 1720, o. surv. s. of William Price of Rhiwlas by Mary, da. of Price Devereux, M.P., subsequently 9th Visct. Hereford; his paternal gd.-mother was a da. of Robert, and Visct. Bulkeley, M.P.  m. Mary, da. and h. of Edward Thelwall of Bathavarn Park, s.p.  suc. cos. Thelwall Price 1767, and took name of Thelwall before Price; suc. fa. 1774.

Offices Held

Biography

Price’s family were strong Tories, and so was Thomas Rowlands of Caerau, father of the Dowager Lady Bulkeley, who since the death of Lord Bulkeley managed the borough, and in 1754 was prepared to sell the seat, but only to one of his own denomination. William Morris wrote to his brother Richard, 6 Apr. 1754: ‘If it was a Jacobite who offered £2,000, I have no doubt it would be acceptable; if a Hanoverian, £5,000 would be insufficient—madness, isn’t it?’1 In 1761 Rowlands insisted on re-electing Price against the protests of Sir Hugh Williams, who had married the Dowager Lady Bulkeley. In October 1761 Newcastle did not send Price his parliamentary whip. He was an independent, and there was uncertainty about him on both sides. In Bute’s list of December 1761 he appears as ‘doubtful’, and is not in Fox’s list of Members in favour of the peace preliminaries. In Onslow’s list of those ‘Supposed to have voted with us [the Opposition], on ... February 14, 1764’ (over general warrants), his name is first crossed out by Newcastle, and next reinserted: in the division of 18 Feb. Price voted with the Opposition; none the less, in the list of 10 May 1764 Newcastle classed him as doubtful, and so did Rockingham in July 1765. He did not vote against the repeal of the Stamp Act; but was classed by Rockingham in November 1766 as ‘Tory, Bute’, and by Newcastle in March 1767 as ‘Administration’. The only other vote of Price’s on record is against the nullum tempus bill, 17 Feb. 1768. He appears not to have spoken in the House. After Rowlands’s death in 1764 Hugh Williams assumed the management of the Bulkeley interest at Beaumaris, and replaced Price at the general election of 1768.

Price died 25 Mar. 1775.

Ref Volumes: 1754-1790

Author: Peter D.G. Thomas

Notes

  • 1. Morris Letters, i. 284.