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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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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  7 Entries        
IDNameDOBPlace of birthArrivals & ShipsDest.AgencyFamily links
6595 BOURNE, Albert1911WAL,    , Merthyr Tydfil Jul 1927 : Minnedosa CAN Barnardos  
7229 COOMBS, Reginald Guy1915WAL,    , Merthyr Tydfil Sep 1929 : Duchess of Atholl  Barnardos  
7244 JONES, Melvin1914WAL,    , Merthyr Tydfil Sep 1929 : Duchess of Atholl CAN Barnardos  
10539 MORGAN, Daniel1912WAL,    , Merthyr Tydfil Oct 1927 : Montclare CAN Barnardos  
7254 PRICE, Thomas 1915WAL,    , Merthyr Tydfil Sep 1929 : Duchess of Atholl CAN Barnardos  
8838 PRICE, William Robert1909WAL,    , Merthyr Tydfil 1923 : Regina  Louisa Birt  
10548 REED, Rufus1914WAL,    , Merthyr Tydfil Oct 1927 : Montclare CAN Barnardos