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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 34 Entries

ID	Name	DOB	Place of birth	Arrivals & Ships	Dest.	Agency	Family links
7403	PRICE, Amos	1871	ENG,	Jun 1878 : Sarmatian	CAN	Middlemore
18067	PRICE, Andrew	1899	ENG,	Sep 1907 : Dominion	CAN	Barnardos
26461	PRICE, Charles N	1897	ENG,	Mar 1906 : Dominion	CAN	Barnardos
25595	PRICE, Constance	1898	ENG,	May 1909 : Corsican	CAN	Barnardos
18068	PRICE, Dorothy	1895	ENG,	Aug 1908 : Virginian	CAN	Waifs & Strays
9490	PRICE, E R N	1888	ENG,	May 1904 : Kensington	CAN	Barnardos
23557	PRICE, Edgar	1916	WAL, MON, Abergavenny	Mar 1928 : Benalla	AUS	Fairbridge Homes
15692	PRICE, Edward	1903	ENG,	Apr 1917 : Olympic	CAN	Dakeyne Boys Farm
24948	PRICE, Edward	1902		Mar 1910 : Tunisian	CAN	Barnardos
4441	PRICE, Elizabeth Martin	1912	ENG, STS, Wolverhampton	May 1920 : Minnedosa	CAN	Middlemore
12173	PRICE, Florence Emily	1916	ENG,	May 1928 : Ballarat	AUS	Fairbridge Homes
3716	PRICE, Frederick	1898	ENG, MDX, London	Mar 1911 : Dominion	CAN	National Childrens Home
6113	PRICE, George	1896	ENG,	Aug 1909 : Tunisian	CAN	MacPherson Homes
14426	PRICE, George	1882	ENG,	Sep 1895 : Sardinian	CAN	Waifs & Strays
18518	PRICE, George	1898	ENG,	Apr 1910 : Empress of Ireland	CAN	Fegan Homes for Boys
7288	PRICE, George Henry	1913	WAL, , Brecon	Sep 1929 : Duchess of Atholl	CAN	Catholic Emigration Association
16664	PRICE, Henry		ENG,	Oct 1909 : Sicilian	CAN	Barnardos
24519	PRICE, H__y	1896		Jun 1906 : Dominion	CAN	Barnardos
18070	PRICE, John	1900	ENG,	Aug 1904 : Bavarian	CAN	Catholic Emigration Association
6863	PRICE, Joseph	1890	ENG,	Jun 1899 : Siberian	CAN	Middlemore
13478	PRICE, Leonard	1871	ENG,	May 1887 : Parisian	CAN	Board of Guardians (Various)
6591	PRICE, Muriel	1912	WAL, , Methyr Tydfil	Jul 1927 : Minnedosa	CAN	Barnardos
2978	PRICE, Nellie	1897	ENG,	May 1911 : Victorian	CAN	Waifs & Strays
21459	PRICE, Richard M.	1894	ENG, MDX, London	Apr 1905 : Kensington	CAN	Barnardos
21942	PRICE, Roger		ENG,	Apr 1888 : Carthaginian	CAN	Quarriers
24947	PRICE, Sheridan	1899		Mar 1910 : Tunisian	CAN	Barnardos
7254	PRICE, Thomas	1915	WAL, , Merthyr Tydfil	Sep 1929 : Duchess of Atholl	CAN	Barnardos
18900	PRICE, Thomas	1894	ENG,	Sep 1899 : Arawa	CAN	Barnardos
24853	PRICE, Thomas	1896		Mar 1910 : Tunisian	CAN	Barnardos
24117	PRICE, Thomas Henry	1898	ENG, LAN, Great Crosby	Jun 1906 : Dominion	CAN	Barnardos	arkay
24118	PRICE, William Herbert	1893	ENG, LAN, Great Crosby		CAN		arkay
11052	PRICE, William J	1879	ENG,	May 1891 : Mongolian	CAN	Louisa Birt
8838	PRICE, William Robert	1909	WAL, , Merthyr Tydfil	1923 : Regina		Louisa Birt
26464	RICE, William G T	1895	ENG,	Mar 1906 : Dominion	CAN	Barnardos
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 34 Entries

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