Monument to Richard Price, East Enclosure

Reasons for Designation

Yes, list

Details

635-1/0/10211 BUNHILL FIELDS BURIAL GROUND 21-FEB-11 Monument to Richard Price, East Enclos ure

GV II Chest tomb of Richard Price, late C18

LOCATION: 532776.8, 182253.9

MATERIALS: Portland stone

DESCRIPTION: The monument takes the form of a stone chest with a moulded top and base, and fluted and gadrooned corner balusters. Between the latter are fielded inscription panels; only the renewed inscription on the south side, recording the burials of Richard Price and his wife Sarah, remains legible. An inscription on the top commemorates Price's uncle, the Revd Samuel Price.

HISTORY: Richard Price (1723-91) was a Presbyterian minister and academic polymath, whose writings on moral and political philosophy, theology, mathematics, demography, finance and economics made him one of the key intellectual figures of the age. Born near Llangeinor in Glamorgan, he was educated at home and at a number of Dissenting schools and academies, he began his ministerial career as family chaplain to George Streatfield of Stoke Newington, later officiating at a number of chapels in Newington, Hackney and London. In his philosophical writings he defended moral objectivism and the freedom of the will against the subjectivism and determinism of David Hume. His belief in political liberty and full representation made him a lifelong radical and reformer; his support for the American and French revolutions won him the friendship Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson but the bitter enmity of Edmund Burke. His 'Observations on Reversionary Payments' (1771) pointed out a number of systemic flaws in contemporary actuarial practice and led to important financial reforms; equally influential was his commentary on Thomas Bayes' groundbreaking work on probability theory, which Price edited for posthumous publication. In the 1770s and 80s his eminence was such that the Prime Minister, William Pitt, took to consulting him on economic policy. His wide circle of friends and correspondents also included Mary Wollstonecraft, Joseph Priestley and John Howard.

Bunhill Fields was first enclosed as a burial ground in 1665. Thanks to its location just outside the City boundary, and its independence from any Established place of worship, it became London's principal Nonconformist cemetery, the burial place of John Bunyan, Daniel Defoe, William Blake and other leading religious and intellectual figures. It was closed for burials in 1853, laid out as a public park in 1867, and re-landscaped following war damage by Bridgewater and Shepheard in 1964-5.

SOURCES: Corporation of London, A History of the Bunhill Fields Burial Ground (1902). A W Light, Bunhill Fields (London, 1915). D O Thomas, entry on Price in The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, www.oxforddnb.com (retrieved on 9 June 2009).

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: The monument to Richard Price is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * It is a well-preserved late-C18 chest tomb commemorating one of the leading British intellectuals and political radicals of the period. * It is located within the Grade I registered Bunhill Fields Burial Ground (q.v.), and has group value with the other listed tombs in the east enclosure.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

508546

Legacy System:

LBS

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