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Record #8838

Name :: : William Robert PRICE (1909 - )
Father: :
Mother: :

BMD and other details

Date of Birth: : 1909
Marriage (1): :
Marriage (2): :
Date of Death: :

Abode (1) : Place of BirthWales, Merthyr Tydfil

Abode (2) : Place of Death / Burial

Sailing Information

Date of Arrival: : 1923 (unknown)
Country: :
Ship: : Regina
Placement Family: :

Homes / Agencys

Institution (GB): :
Agency: : Louisa Birt

NotesA birth registration was found for William Robert Price: Year of Registration: 1909; Quarter of Registration: Apr-May-Jun; District: Merthyr Tydfil; County: Breconshire, Glamorgan, Mid Glamorgan; Volume: 11a; Page: 818. Parents: Thomas William Price and Annie Maria Mortimer, married 1907 Pontypridd, Glamorgan, Wales.

William's father was killed when he was very young and his mother developed tuberculosis.

In 1923, William Robert Price, 14, arrived at Quebec, Canada, in a group of 52 boys and 12 girls from the Liverpool Sheltering Homes en route to Marchmont Home, Belleville, Ontario, Canada.

On October 31, 1933, at Arnprior, Ontario, Canada, a marriage was registered between William Robert Price, son of Thos Wm Price and Anna Mortimer of England; and Myrtle Frances Hogan, daughter of Leo Hogan and Emma Brunett. Witnesses: Jermanus Scott and Rita C. Hogan.

From This Country Canada, 1994, by Susan Lightstone and Kenneth Bagnell:

"William Price, Barnardo Home Boy

William Price says he couldn't wait to escape the Barnardo institution in Wales where he spent six years of his youth. 'In the first place, I wanted to make something of myself,' he explains. 'The homes was pretty cruel too, ya know. They used to beat those boys awful. They had canes. You could bend them like that,' he states, demonstrating their flexibility with both hands. 'Whoosh! Whoosh! And they beat them with canes. I wanted to get out.'

Twelve-year old William ended up in Belleville, Ontario, at the Marchmount Home in 1923. Despite his tiny, thin frame, Little Billie was deemed suitable for farm work. Groups of farmers arrived at Marchmount on a regular basis to look over the new arrivals. 'You were in a big, open place, playing all around, jumping all around, hittin' each other, showin' off. The people who wanted the boys were standing on the outside and they pick you out...just like cattle, you were picked...So you fight and you'd have lots of showin' off because you wanted to get out, eh? So, this fella by the name of Huffman, he got a likin to me and he took me.'

A delighted Billie accompanied Huffman to his farm in nearby Corbyville. But his new life quickly proved far worse than the one he'd left behind. 'Oh, he was a very rough man. He was a very cruel man. Used to beat the hell out of me. I ran away three or four times and he'd catch me on the road. He was a hard, hard man.'

Price's scrappiness didn't desert him. Eventually he did get away, back to Marchmount and was placed with an Arnprior family in the Ottawa Valley. 'They were good there. Oh you worked from four in the morning 'til midnight, but they fed ya, eh? It was a long hard life, but they were half decent.'

'I worked harder than the average guy because I wanted to show what I could do. I wasn't part of the community--I was a home boy. But they respected me because I worked so hard. If I was working on the thrashing machine, I'd take the hardest job, which was feeding the machine. And they waited for me to do it. I'd take anything hard. I'd always try ot please and impress people,' Price recalls, his voice drifting off. 'Devotion to hard work was not uncommon among home children,' he says, 'They wanted to show they weren't scum that they were human.' Many didn't do it because they wanted to, but because they had to. Just the same as Little Billie Price going to the head of the thrashing machine, he says, explaining the gnawing insecurity many suffered.

As a parent, Price says he was always urging his seven offspring to study hard and succeed. 'I was always pushing them. Although I didn't give them a proper life. I never took them to shows or ballgames like other fellas. All I wanted them to do was study. I didn't want them to be like I was. I wanted to give them what I didn't have myself,' he recalls. One thing Price did give his children was the story of his ordeal as a home boy in an autobiography, Celtic Odyssey. Few other descendants of home children received that gift. Most home children descendants were never told of their parents' childhood."

In November, 1980, the Ottawa Citizen reported:

"William was strong enough. He survived even greater hardships when they shipped him to Canada as a home boy to provide farmers with cheap labor, and he survived terrible setbacks when in later years he tried to establish in business.

A long time resident of Arnprior, William wrote a book about his experiences and called it a Celtic Odyssey.

As a crowning touch to the Odyssey, William Price has just been elected Reeve of Arnprior." (A Reeve is the equivalent of a city counselor except he/she represents a rural area as opposed to an area of a city.)

William said that when he tried to explain about his background, "my family didn't believe me. That's why I had to write the book."

William was also the general manager of the local Canadian Tire Store. By 2001, he was retired and living in the Ottawa Valley.

ContributorsCreated : 2009-07-07 14:30:38 / From original database

Last Updated : 2015-04-28 19:37:43 / alanmack

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Readers Comments

Surnames starting with: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 30 Entries

Page: [1] 2 3 4 5 6 156 Entries

ID	Name	DOB	Place of birth	Arrivals & Ships	Dest.	Agency	Family links
3062	ABEL, Abraham	1892	WAL, , Newport	Apr 1908 : Kensington	CAN	Unknown
6256	ADDIS, Herbert	1897	WAL, MON, Newport	Jul 1909 : Sicilian	CAN	Barnardos
13096	ALLEN, Ernest John	1894	WAL, GLA, Pontypridd	Aug 1909 : Canada	CAN	National Childrens Home
13834	ANTWIS, Robert Luchesi	1891	WAL, PEM, Haverfordwest	Mar 1903 : Canada	CAN	Barnardos
9233	ANTWIS, Sidney Walter John	1893	WAL, PEM, Pembroke Dock	Mar 1903 : Canada	CAN	Barnardos
15290	ASHWORTH, William John	1880	WAL, GLA, Swansea	Jul 1892 : Mongolian	CAN	Barnardos
10956	BARTLETT, Lydia M	1878	WAL, FLN, Holywell	May 1888 : Sardinian	CAN	MacPherson Homes
9979	BASSETT, Gwendoline	1894	WAL,	Oct 1902 : Colonian	CAN	Barnardos
10626	BENBOW, Alfred	1914	WAL, , Forden	Apr 1929 : Duchess of York	CAN	Barnardos	CyraL
16315	BENTALL, Lila Rosanna	1874	WAL, GLA, Merthyr Tydfil	Jul 1886 : Parisian	CAN	Barnardos
4181	BERRYMAN, Hannah Maria	1891	WAL, MON, Pontypool	Sep 1907 : Dominion	CAN	Barnardos
4182	BERRYMAN, Jonas Francis	1896	WAL, GLA, Abercanaid	Apr 1910 : Corsican	CAN	Waifs & Strays
4183	BERRYMAN, May Harriet	1899	WAL, MON, Pontypool	May 1911 : Victorian	CAN	Waifs & Strays
5078	BIRKENHEAD, Joseph	1910	WAL, , Hazel Beach	Aug 1926 : Montrose	CAN	Barnardos
16711	BLEWITT, Annie	1898	WAL, GLA, Ynyshir	Oct 1911 : Corinthian	CAN	Barnardos
16596	BOOTH, Annie May	1892	WAL, MON, Abergavenny	Oct 1903 : Dominion	CAN	Barnardos
6595	BOURNE, Albert	1911	WAL, , Merthyr Tydfil	Jul 1927 : Minnedosa	CAN	Barnardos
6596	BOURNE, William	1913	WAL, , Aberdare	Jul 1927 : Minnedosa	CAN	Barnardos
12699	BOWEN, Charles	1878	WAL, DEN, Wrexham	Mar 1892 : Carthaginian	CAN	Barnardos
11829	BRANNON, Sarah	1896	WAL, , Wrexham	Jul 1907 : Tunisian	CAN	Catholic Emigration Association
10625	BRIDGEHOUSE, William	1913	WAL,	Apr 1929 : Duchess of York	CAN	Barnardos
13440	BRIDGES, James	1873	WAL, MON, Newport	Apr 1886 : Dominion	CAN	Board of Guardians (Various)
12972	BROOKLYN, David Richard	1892	WAL,	Jul 1911 : Sicilian	CAN	Barnardos
12971	BROOKLYN, Edith	1898	WAL, GLA, Bridgend	Jul 1911 : Sicilian	CAN	Barnardos
9138	BROWN, Herbert James	1892	WAL, , Newport	Aug 1905 : Dominion	CAN	Barnardos
14693	BUDNER, Bessie	1907	WAL,	Mar 1920 : Sicilian	CAN	Barnardos
16584	BUTCHER, Gladys Ruby	1894	WAL, MON, Newport	Aug 1906 : Tunisian	CAN	MacPherson Homes
16583	BUTCHER, Milicent Florence	1901	WAL, MON, Newport	Jun 1912 : Tunisian	CAN	Barnardos
8071	BUTLER, Roy	1916	WAL, , Colwyn Bay	Mar 1932 : Montclare	CAN	YMCA
7266	CAHILL, Charles	1913	WAL, , Ebbw Vale	Sep 1929 : Duchess of Atholl	CAN	Catholic Emigration Association
ID	Name	DOB	Place of birth	Arrivals & Ships	Dest.	Agency	Family links

Page: [1] 2 3 4 5 6 156 Entries

Surnames starting with: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 30 Entries

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