Morgan Phillips Price

Morgan Philips Price (1885-1973) was a British politician and a Labour Party Member of Parliament.

He was born on 29th January, 1885 in Grove Taynton. His father, William Price, was also a British MP, serving for the seat of Tewkesbury. M. Philips Price was schooled at Harrow and Trinity College, Cambridge. When his father died in 1906, Price inherited an estate of some 2,000 acres.

Journalistic Career

His political life began as a member of the Liberal Party, and he saw selected as a prospective party candidate for Gloucester (1911-14). However, he took an anti-war stance at the outbreak of the Great War joining the anti-war Union of Democratic Control at its inception. In 1914, he also published "The Diplomatic History of the War".

He was then recruited by C.P. Scott of the Manchester Guardian, and became a war correspondent for the Eastern Front. As a Russian speaker, he was subsequently able to observe and report on the the Russian Revolution. In 1921, he retuned to Britain and published "My Reminiscences of the Russian Revolution" which showed sympathy to the government of Vladimir Lenin and the Bolsheviks.

Price was later employed by the Daily Herald as a correspondent in Germany from 1919-23.

Parliament

After the First World War, Price joined the Labour Party, and became its candidate for the Gloucester seat. He fought the seat at the General Elections of 1922, 1923 and 1924 but was never successful. At the 1929 General Election, he was finally elected to parliament for the Whitehaven constituency. He joined Ramsay MacDonald's government when appointed as Private Secretary to Charles Trevelyan, president of the Board of Education.

At the 1931 General Election Price lost his seat. However, he returned to Parliament in 1935, as member for the Forest of Dean which he served until 1950, when he became member for Gloucestershire West until 1959.

He published his memoirs "My Three Revolutions" 1969, and died on 23rd September, 1973.

ources

[http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/FWWpriceP.htm biography on Schools.net]