Robert Price (judge)

Robert Price (14 January 1653 – 2 February 1732) was a British judge and politician.

Early life

Robert Price was born in early 1653 (1654 in the Gregorian calendar), the eldest son of Thomas Price of Giler in Cerrigydrudion, Denbighshire by Margaret, only child of Thomas Wynn of Bwlch y Beudy in the same parish. [Griffith, John Edwards (1914): "Pedigrees of Anglesey and Carnarvonshire Families". Horncastle: Morton & Sons.] He was educated at Wrexham Grammar school and St John's College, Cambridge, after which he entered Lincoln's Inn before making the Grand Tour. [Williams, Rev. Robert (1852): "Enwogion Cymru: A Biographical dictionary of Eminent Welshmen". Llandovery: William Rees.]

Career

On 23 September 1679 Price married Lucy, eldest daughter and coheiress of Robert Rodd of Foxley in Yazor, Herefordshire by Ann Sophia, only child of Thomas Neale of Warneford, Hampshire. Robert Rodd died two years later and Price inherited the Foxley estate. [Robinson, Rev. Charles John (1873): "A History of the Mansions and Manors of Herefordshire". Longman & Co.]

In 1682 Price was appointed Attorney General for South Wales, as well as alderman of the city of Hereford; the following year he became recorder of Radnor; then steward to Catherine of Braganza in 1684; town clerk of Gloucester 1685; and King's Counsel for Ludlow in 1686. ["Notes and Queries", 2nd series no.28 (12 July 1856), p.24.]

Price was removed as Attorney General and from other offices in 1688; he later successfully opposed William III's 1695 grant of lands in Denbighshire to William Bentinck, 1st Earl of Portland, earning the appellation "patriot of his native country". He was appointed a judge in Wales in 1700. [Williams, Rev. Robert (1852).]

Robert Price also served as Member of Parliament for Weobley during this period, resigning the seat in favour of his elder son Thomas in 1702; Queen Anne upon her succession had elevated Price to the House of Lords as a Baron of the Exchequer. [Hillaby, Joseph (1967): "The Parliamentary Borough of Weobley 1628-1708". "Transactions of the Woolhope Naturalists' Field Club" vol. xxxix.] In 1726 he became a justice of the Court of Common Pleas.

Price died at Kensington in February 1732 (1733 New Style) and was buried at Yazor. His elder son Thomas had died at Genoa in 1706, so the younger son Uvedale Tomkins Price succeeded to the family estates in Herefordshire and Denbighshire. There was also a daughter Lucy, who married Bampfylde Rodd of Devon, a distant cousin. [Robinson, Rev. Charles John (1873).]

References