Richard Price

Richard Price
Portrait of Richard Price (1784), by Benjamin West.
Born	23 February 1723 Tynton, Llangeinor, Glamorgan, Wales
Died	19 April 1791(1791-04-19) (aged 68) Newington Green, London, England

Richard Price (23 February 1723 – 19 April 1791) was a Welsh moral philosopher, preacher and mathematician. He was a nonconformist, meaning that he was a Protestant Christian who did not "conform" to the governance and usages of the established Church of England. He was also a political pamphleteer, active in radical, republican, and liberal causes such as the American Revolution. He was well-connected and fostered communication between a large number of people, including several of the Founding Fathers of the United States.

Price spent most of his adult life as minister of Newington Green Unitarian Church, on the outskirts of London. He also wrote on issues of demography and finance, and was a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Richard Price was the son of Rhys Price, a dissenting minister. His mother was Catherine Richards, his father's second wife. Richard was born at Tyn Ton, a farmhouse in the village of Llangeinor, Glamorgan, Wales. He was educated privately, then at Neath and Pen-twyn. He studied under Vavasor Griffiths at Chancefield, Talgarth.

He then left Wales for England, where he spent the rest of his life. He studied with John Eames and the dissenting academy in Moorfields, London. Leaving the academy in 1744, Price became chaplain and companion to George Streatfield at Stoke Newington, then a village just north of London. He also held the lectureship at Old Jewry, where Samuel Chandler was minister. Streatfield's death and that of an uncle in 1757 improved his circumstances, and on 16 June 1757 he married Sarah Blundell, originally of Belgrave in Leicestershire.