Introduction
William Samuel Price (1812-1882)
This account of the family of William Samuel Price (1812-1882) has been pieced together during 2005-2010 using information from a wide range of sources. Vivian Price-Vego has supplied the basic family oral history, plus many photographs, and Tom Locke has largely tracked down the documentary evidence. Family letters and photographs were supplied by Norah Squibbs nee Seager and other contributors have been Nancy Gormezano and Howard Evans. These people would not have been drawn together but for a request for information on the family on the Internet by Howard Davies. Unfortunately, he died without knowing what he had unleashed!
The research into the Price family has involved the usual sources now available on the Internet, such as birth, marriage and death registers and the censuses of England and Scotland from 1841 to 1911. In addition, visits have been made to the British Library in London to consult documents in the Indian and Oriental Department and the National Archives at Kew to examine British Army muster rolls. Contact was made with the Regimental Museum in Rotherham, that covers the old 65th and 84th Foot Regiments, and researchers and archivists in Greenwich, Staffordshire, Guernsey and Edinburgh.
William Samuel Price was born in Bombay in 1812, the son of the late Sergeant William Price of the 65th Foot and his wife Mary, nee Dodds. Family tradition states that William Price came from Brecon in mid-Wales and that Mary was born in Dalkeith, a few miles South-East of Edinburgh, Scotland. As will be seen later, neither of these events can be positively confirmed, but they are likely to have been fairly accurately described.
The period during which most of this story unfolds runs from about 1780 to the Great War of 1914-18. It starts in a period of upheaval, at the time of the loss to Britain of her American Colonies, through to the Napoleonic Wars and Britain’s expansion of her Indian Empire to the tragedy of the Great War.
In the first revision of the History additional information and major corrections have been made. Contact has been made with other family members who have supplied new material, particularly Guy Barker, Paul Price and Denis Ellis. Also added, are some outline details of William Samuel Price II’s grandchildren and their descendants.
Following a contact with Angela McNairn in 2017, fresh information has been added concerning the descendants of John Dodds Price and Julia Charlotte Price.
In 2020, Penny Eaton made contact and a whole new aspect of William Samuel Price II's life was revealed. In London, during 1865-1882, he had a secret family at the same time as his one in Greenwich. During this period, he fathered no less than eight illegitimate children. Their story has now been added to this web-site.
Author's footnote:
This History will be updated and corrected periodically as new information becomes available. Anyone having comments on the contents should contact the author by email at thos.locke@btopenworld.com
Tom Locke
3 November 2020