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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

Family History ResearchersRootsChatters with family connections to William Robert PRICE:

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 38 Entries

ID	Name	DOB	Place of birth	Arrivals & Ships	Dest.	Agency	Family links
11502	ALLPORT, Elsie	1912	ENG, , Shrewsbury	May 1929 : Regina		Waifs & Strays	ynaught
11505	AMOS, Bert	1914	ENG, KEN, Medway	May 1929 : Regina	CAN	Waifs & Strays
10258	ATHERTON, Herbert Foster	1908	ENG, LAN, West Derby	Jun 1924 : Regina	CAN	MacPherson Homes
14618	BANCE, Albert Edward	1914	ENG, LND, Wandsworth	May 1929 : Regina	CAN	Waifs & Strays
18723	BARNES, John William	1910	ENG,	1922 : Regina	CAN	Unknown
22840	BEAN, Charles William	1911	ENG,	Jul 1927 : Regina	CAN	Canadian Government Scheme
10846	BEE, Frederick William	1907	ENG, LIN, Glanford Brigg	Jul 1923 : Regina	CAN	National Childrens Home
21563	BEESON, Thomas Herbert	1906	ENG,	May 1922 : Regina	CAN	National Childrens Home
21648	BELL, Albert	1910	ENG,	May 1925 : Regina	CAN	Salvation Army
23438	BRUMBY, Albert	1910	ENG,	Jun 1924 : Regina	CAN	MacPherson Homes
23440	BRUMBY, James Price	1912	ENG,	Jun 1924 : Regina	CAN	MacPherson Homes
3299	BRYANT, Walter Leonard	1911	ENG,	May 1922 : Regina	CAN	National Childrens Home
10470	BURNS, Joseph	1907	ENG, LAN, Liverpool	Jul 1924 : Regina	CAN	Salvation Army
22797	CAPON, Beatrice	1913	ENG,	Nov 1924 : Regina	CAN	Salvation Army
10845	CASENTIERI, Ellen Grace	1903	ENG, , Hackney	Jul 1923 : Regina	CAN	National Childrens Home
14559	CATHIE, Stanley John	1907	ENG, , St Marylebone	Mar 1923 : Regina	CAN	National Childrens Home
22518	DAY, Albert William George	1909	ENG,	May 1923 : Regina	CAN	National Childrens Home
15604	DIXON, Margaret	1910	ENG,	Jun 1923 : Regina	CAN	Louisa Birt
14560	ECCLES, Samuel	1908	ENG, LAN	Mar 1923 : Regina	CAN	National Childrens Home
10436	EMMERSON, Sidney George	1911	ENG, LDN, London	Mar 1923 : Regina	CAN	National Childrens Home
17227	FILLINGHAM, William	1907	ENG,	Mar 1923 : Regina	CAN	National Childrens Home
10847	GLENCROSS, Bernard	1907	ENG, , Kings Norton	Jul 1923 : Regina	CAN	National Childrens Home
22812	GOODMAN, Bernard	1908	ENG,	Mar 1924 : Regina	CAN	Salvation Army
13192	GRIFFIN, Sydney	1912	ENG, SSX, Hastings	Jun 1923 : Regina	CAN	Louisa Birt	glendag
19794	HAMILTON, Charles	1909	ENG,	Jun 1923 : Regina	CAN	Louisa Birt
22522	HATTON, Geneste Norman	1908	ENG,	Jun 1923 : Regina	CAN	Louisa Birt
22523	HODGE, Reginald Charles	1907	ENG,	Jul 1923 : Regina	CAN	National Childrens Home
22450	JONES, Frederick Stanley	1912	ENG,	Jul 1928 : Regina	CAN	Church of England
23863	LEACH, Albert Henry	1907	ENG, KEN, Brenchley	Mar 1923 : Regina	CAN	National Childrens Home
16614	LEWIS, Thomas	1913	ENG, DEV, Bradninch	May 1929 : Regina	CAN	Waifs & Strays
10572	NEALE, Ethel	1907	ENG,	Jun 1923 : Regina	CAN	Louisa Birt
12713	OSBORNE, Cyril	1913	ENG, , St Marylebone	Jul 1923 : Regina	CAN	National Childrens Home
8838	PRICE, William Robert	1909	WAL, , Merthyr Tydfil	1923 : Regina		Louisa Birt
4452	SLATER, Alfred	1915	IRL, ANT, Belfast	Apr 1929 : Regina	CAN	Salvation Army	Shaztoni
21907	STRATTON, William	1911	IRL, DOW	Jun 1929 : Regina	CAN	British Immigration and Colonisation Association
22538	TYE, Leslie	1908	ENG,	Mar 1923 : Regina	CAN	National Childrens Home
15833	WARBURTON, Joseph	1910	ENG,	Jul 1923 : Regina	CAN	National Childrens Home
3577	WARREN, Ernest Henry	1907	ENG, SSX, Hastings	Mar 1923 : Regina	CAN	National Childrens Home	Romilly
ID	Name	DOB	Place of birth	Arrivals & Ships	Dest.	Agency	Family links

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 38 Entries

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