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CHARTIST, heretic, archdruid and pioneer in the legalisation of cremation in the British Isles, Dr William Price was undoubtedly one of the most flamboyant and indeed eccentric characters in Welsh history, as bright and colourful as his burning funeral pyre which shone across a dark and dull Victorian age.
Whether regarded as a figure ahead of his time, or simply a certified madman prone to severe bouts of bizarre behaviour, there is no doubt that more than a century after his death, he is still viewed with fascination for the beliefs which saw him persecuted throughout his 93 years. Famed healer, Falstaffian rebel, exiled political activist and a sparkling, dynamic, eloquent man who blazed progress and controversy by outraging a conventional society. Price lived in a non-conformist, deacon-dominated Wales and succeeded in infuriating an entire population. Yet his incredible legacy cannot be underestimated.
The passing of the Cremation Act in 1902 had a profound effect on the entire country, but there was much more to Dr William Price than his radical attitudes to cremation. After all, were his actions due to an honest distaste for human burial under hygienic crowds, or were those beliefs far deeper, rooted in Druidic rituals of which he claimed to be the master scholar'
Whatever the reason, he still deserves record as the man whose actions on a hilltop above the ancient town of Llantrisant caused a revolutionary result in a new method of disposal of the dead in the United Kingdom. His burning of the body of his infant son with full druidic rites, carried out like some intruder from Dante's Inferno, his subsequent trial and the judgement of Justice Stephens, established the legality of cremation throughout Great Britain. As he stalked around the leaping flames, clothed in long druidic robes, his tumbled white hair streaming in the wind, reciting incantations in Welsh over a cast at the centre of the blaze, few would have realised the tremendous impact he would have on modern-day society.
Dr Price was far from the epitome of the Victorian gentleman, defying in the most exhibitory fashion the conventions and beliefs of his time including law, religion, morality and his own medical profession. In his youth he practised nudism, roaming about stark naked across the clouded mountains close to his home, attempting to bring back some form of a new druidic society, lost with the advent of Christianity in Britain.
Born in Rudry near Caerphilly in 1800 and the fifth child of Rev William Price, he was an apprentice to a local surgeon at the age of 13 and later studied at St Bartholomew's Hospital, London where he was made a Licentiate of the Society of Apothecaries and a Member of the Royal College of Surgeons before turning 22. He hailed from a family of some consequence as his father was an ordained priest and Price himself grew up to be rather remarkable scholar, becoming a surgeon by the age of just 21. Although few can dismiss claims that madness and insanity prevailed in his genetic make-up. Coupled with his close friendships with gentlemen of equally outlandish ideas and beliefs, there is little doubt why Price was observed with as much fear as respect. Calling himself a druid, this dignified adult named one of his sons Jesus Christ, claiming this was the son of god ' a druidic god at that, and would bring back the order of the Druids to rule the land. To add to this status as both a showman and healer, his public appearances drew great attention to the short Welshman. Dressed in a succession of weird and highly-colored costumes, the most conspicuous item worn was a fox-skin head-dress with the tail and legs about his shoulders, hanging as low as his grey hair and beard.
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Advocating free-love, he was personally successful in this philosophy, having fathered illegitimate children throughout the district; and standing on a the Rocking Stone in Pontypridd he would chant pagan addresses to the moon, much to the amusement of local non-believers. His great talent as a physician earned him extra fame, but he vehemently attacked the medical superstitions of Victoria's reign. Stately in appearance, he never ate meat, his favourite drink was champagne and he was strong and handsome as an oak.
In 1827 he moved to Nantgarw and became the surgeon for ironmaster Francis Crawshay, practising medicine at the Brown Lenox chainworks where he allegedly performed one of the first skin-graft operations on an injured worker. Of course such a man had the police always at his heels. Dr. Price was ever in and out of the courts, both as a defendant and petitioner. He was charged with the manslaughter of a patient and had his father's body exhumed to prove mental illness, infuriating an entire community in doing so. Possessing an extensive knowledge of the law, and draped in a shawl of royal tartan, he would conduct his own defence, lacing his speeches with a kind of mystic poetry, and once satirically bringing to court as his learned counsel, his infant daughter which he rather incredulously named Iarlles Morgannwg or the Countess of Glamorgan.
Dr Price made one of the first attempts at creating an embryonic national health service, believing patients should pay him when they were well and he would treat them if they became ill. He performed a bone-graft operation on an injured worker and delivered the heir to an ironmaster's fortune by Caesarian birth on a kitchen table.
Dr William Price by Alexander Steward c.1821
He was a leader in the failed Chartist rising of 1839, condemning any brute force used by fellow leaders and, dressed as a woman, he was obliged to flee to France, which is where he claimed to have had an enlightening druidic experience. He believed that in becoming the first person in 2,000 years to interpret the hieroglyphics on an ancient Greek stone at the Louvre gallery, he had foreseen the future of the rise of the Druid people. In naming himself the Son of the Primitive Bard, a high order of druid, the prophecy claimed his son would be the next ruler of the earth. When declared bankrupt following his building of two irregular shaped buildings in Pontypridd, he escaped the besieging police again, having himself nailed into a wooden box which was carted out of the house. Dr Price went on to build the famous Round Houses at Glyntaf, Pontypridd as an entrance to a planned stately home which failed and when rejected from the land by owner Lady Lanover, the time was right to leave the market town altogether. In 1873 he was acquitted of the manslaughter of a patient and settled in Ty'r Clettwr, Llantrisant, joined by his 16-year-old housekeeper, Gwenllian Llewellyn who gave birth to their first child, named Iesu Grist (Jesus Christ) in August 1883, when the good doctor was 83-years-old.
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