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

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?’Morris Letters, i. 284. 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.