A Welsh Heretic. Dr. William Price of Llantrisant
Fifty-four years after his death, Dr. William Price, dreamer: visionary and weaver of fantasies, received public recognition
and the questionable stamp of bourgeois respectability.
On September 17th, 1947, members of The Cremation Society and others from all over Britain, including Mr. P. Herbert Jones of The Cremation Society, Mr. Arthur Pearson, M.P., Mr. Hugh Royle of The Federation of British Cremation Authorities, Alderman G. J. Ferguson, Lord Mayor of Cardiff, Councillor William Jones of the Pontypridd Urban District Council and Councillor Ivor Jacobs of the Llantrisant Town Trust, stood in the steep main street at Llantrisant, and watched the old doctor's daughter, Miss Penelope Price, unveil a bronze plaque on the wall of Zoar Chapel, formerly her father's home.
The plaque read: This tablet was erected by The Cremation Society and the Federation of British Cremation Authorities to commemorate that act of Dr. William Price, who cremated the body of his infant son in Caerlan Fields,
Llantrisant. For his act he was indicted at the Glamorganshire Winter Assize on the 12th of February, 1884, where he was acquitted by Mr. Justice Stephen, who adjudged that cremation was a "legal act."
Last year, seventy-eight years after Dr. Price's death, there were more than 355,023 cremations in this country. It is interesting to note that among those present at this ceremony was Mrs. S. E. Fisher, widow of the Rev. Daniel
Fisher, who courageously officiated at the old doctor's cremation. Despite great opposition, and even hostility, he conducted the service, inserting, for the first time, the words "I commit his body to the fire". For this service he was paid two half-crowns. The turbulent, provocative, old visionary had, at last come into his own!
1973. ISLWYN AP NICHOLAS
