Dr. William Price

William Price

January 18, 1884: Dr. William Price attempts to cremate his recently deceased infant son. Calling the Welsh-born physician an eccentric may be understating the case. He was born on March 4, 1800 near Caerphilly in southern Wales. As a teenager, he walked the countryside naked, to his neighbors’ dismay.  At age 20, he went to London and attended the Royal College of Surgeons. He was fluent in English and Latin as well as his native Welsh. He returned to Wales and practiced medicine at Treforest Iron Works.

The miserable working conditions and the effects on the populace were precipitating factors to the doctor’s membership in the Chartism cause. This social reform movement’s name sprang from a petition placed in 1838 with six main goals to help equalize the citizenry before the law. Dr. Price’s involvement eventually led him to flee Great Britain for Paris. He returned to Wales, fled for Paris again in 1860 after a warrant was placed for his arrest, and eventually returned to Wales permanently.

Dr. Price refused to treat anyone who smoked. He was also a Druid and appointed himself archdruid in 1840. He thoroughly washed all coins in his possession to rid them of germs. He was a vegetarian. He did not believe in marriage stating the institution enslaved women. He did father three children, a daughter born in 1841, a son in 1883, and a second daughter in 1886. He was anti-capitalist after watching the owners of coal mines and the local gentry abuse their positions of power. He was famous for wearing a fox-skin headdress but never socks – thinking the latter were unhygienic.

His son, Jesus Christ (Iesu Grist in Welsh) Price, was five months old when he died. Dr. Price thought burial was a “sin against the earth” and built a pyre of coal in order to cremate his son’s body. He was arrested before completing the act and prosecuted. At trial, he spoke in his own defense (wearing his fox headdress). The judge said there was no law banning the practice. The case set a precedence and the first official cremation took place in 1885. Dr. Price died at the age of 92. He was cremated, atop two tons of coal, in front of 20,000 onlookers.

It is not right that a carcass should be allowed to rot and decompose in this way. It results in a wastage of good land, pollution of the earth, water and air, and is a constant danger to all living creatures. – Dr. William Price

You get this argument that burial is big and ugly and corporate and fat and it’s the Cadillac. Cremation is hip and new and happening. It’s the VW bug with the “small is beautiful” kind of thing. – Stephen Prothero

It (cremation) used to be kind of taboo, but anymore it’s become real popular. It takes up less space, and you’re dead anyway, so what’s the difference? – Bob Young

Cremation is almost always chosen by the deceased. Surveys show people choose it because it’s easier to arrange. – Jack Springer

Also on this day:

Rudyard Kipling – In 1936, Rudyard Kipling died.
Botany Bay – In 1788, HMS Supply reached Botany Bay.
Daredevil Success – In 1911, the first plane was landed on a ship at sea.

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