Richard Price, the son of Rice Price, a Congregational
minister, was born in Tynton, Glamorgan in 1723. From an early age
he appears to have rejected his father's religious opinions and instead
was attracted to the views of more liberal theologians.
He
attended a Dissenting Academy in London
and afterwards became a chaplain in Stoke Newington. In 1756 he married
Sarah Blundell and two years later moved to Newington Green, a small
village near Hackney.
In
1758 Price wrote the very influential Review
of the Principal Questions of Morals. In the book Price
argued that individual conscience and reason should be used when making
moral choices. Price also rejected the traditional Christian ideas
of original sin and eternal punishment. Price and his friend, Joseph
Priestly, became leaders of a group of men called Rational Dissenters.
Richard
Price was also friendly with the mathematician Thomas Bayes. After
Bayes's death in 1761, his relatives asked Price to examine his unpublished
papers. Price realized their importance and submitted, An
Essay Towards Solving a Problem in the Doctrine of Chances
to the Royal Society. In this work, Price, using the information provided
by Bayes, introduced the idea of estimating the probability of an
event from the frequency of its previous occurrences.
In
1765 Price was admitted to the Royal Society for his work on probability.
He also began collecting information on life expectation and in May
1770 he wrote to the Royal Society about the proper method of calculating
the values of contingent reversions. It is believed that this information
drew attention to the inadequate calculations on which many insurance
and benefit societies had recently been formed.
Other
books by Price include Observations on Reversionary
Payments (1771), An Appeal to
the Public on the Subject of the National Debt (1772) and
Observations
on the Nature of Civil Liberty, the Principles of Government, and
the Justice and Policy of War with America (1776)
In
1784 Richard Price met Mary
Wollstonecraft who had opened a school in Newington Green.
Although Mary was brought up as an Anglican,
she soon began attending Richard Price's chapel. Others who visited
Price in Newington Green included John Howard,
John Quincy
Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Adam Smith. Price was
a true libertarian and laboured throughout his life to increase intellectual,
political and spiritual freedom for all people.
In November, 1789, Richard Price preached a sermon praising the French
Revolution. Price argued that British people, like the French, had
the right to remove a bad king from the throne. He told his congregation
that he could "depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen Thy salvation."
Edmund Burke, was appalled by this sermon
and wrote a reply called Reflections on the
Revolution in France, where he argued in favour of the
inherited rights of the monarchy. Mary
Wollstonecraft was upset by Burke's attack on her friend and she
decided to defend him by writing a pamphlet A
Vindication of the Rights of Man. In her pamphlet Wollstonecraft
not only supported Price but also pointed out what she thought was
wrong with society.
Price was attracted to the ideas of Jeremy
Bentham. Price accepted many aspects of Bentham's unitarianism,
especially his views on political libertarianism and his opposition
to Christian orthodoxy. However, unlike other unitarians, Price was
unwilling to question the divinity of Christ. In 1791 he became one
of the original members of the Unitarian
Society.
Richard
Price died on 19th April, 1791. His funeral was conducted at Bunhill
Fields and his funeral sermon was preached by Joseph
Priestly.
James
Gillray drew this picture of Richard
Price in 1790
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