Timeline

  1. 172323 February: Born at ‘Ty yn y Ton’ (today Tyn Ton) Farm, Llangeinor, south Wales
  2. 1731-1739: Attends school in Neath and dissenter academies in south Wales
  3. 1740Moves to London following the death of his parents
    Attends Moorfields Academy in London
    Lives first in lodgings in Pudding Lane then for a short time in Hackney, where he meets his future wife Sarah Blundell
  4. 1744Chaplain to George Streatfield and his family in Stoke Newington and assistant to Samuel Chandler at the Old Jewry Meeting House in London
  5. 1757Death of George Streatfield
  6. 175716 June: marries Sarah Blundell in Stoke Newington Church
  7. 1758Appointed morning and afternoon preacher at Newington Green Meeting House and moves to a house alongside the greenA Review of the Principal Questions and Difficulties in Morals
  8. 1759Britain’s Happiness and the Proper Improvement of it
  9. 1762Appointed evening preacher at Poor Jewry Lane Meeting House
  10. 1764Edits and has published An Essay Towards Solving a Problem in the Doctrine of Chances and a Demonstration of the Second Rule in the Essay Towards the Solution of a Problem in the Doctrine of Chances. The work is by Price’s lately deceased friend Thomas Bayes. It contains a theorem now known as ‘Bayes’s Theorem’. This has wide application and is a foundation to many modern day developments
  11. 1765Supplement to the Essay in the Doctrine of ChancesMade a Fellow of the Royal Society for his mathematical and philosophical work. One of his sponsors is his great friend Benjamin Franklin.
  12. 1766The Nature and Dignity of the Human Soul
  13. 1767Four Dissertations
  14. 1768Begins a fifteen-year period in which he acts as an unpaid advisor to the Society for Equitable Assurances, better known today as the Equitable Life Assurance Society.
  15. 1769Doctor of Divinity from Marischal College, AberdeenObservations on the Expectation of Lives, The Increase of Mankind, The Influence of great towns on Population, and Particularly the State of London with Respect to Healthfulness and Number of Inhabitants
  16. 1770Appointed morning preacher at the Old Gravel Pit Meeting House in Hackney.
    Continues afternoon preaching at Newington Green but gives up post at Old Jewry 

    The Vanity, Misery, and Infamy, of Knowledge without suitable Practice

    Observations on the Proper Method of Calculating the Values of Reversions

    On the Transit of Venus

  17. 1771Observations on Reversionary Payments; On Schemes for Providing Annuities for Widows, and for Persons in Old Age; On the Method of Calculating the Values of Assurances on Lives; and on the National Debt Dr. Price’s Answer Relative to the Establishment for a Provision to the Widows and Children of the Ministers and Professors in Scotland
  18. 1772Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the National Debt
  19. 1773On the Insalubrity of Marshy Situations
  20. 1774Calculations and Observations Relating to the Scheme of the Laudable Society for the Benefit of Widows
  21. 177519 April Opening event of the American Revolution at LexingtonObservations on the Duration of Human Life

    23 August American colonies declared to be in a state of rebellion by George III

    Short and Easy Theorems

  22. 177610 February: Price publishes Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty, the Principles of Government, and the Justice and Policy of the War with America in which he supports the American revolutionaries. One thousand copies at 2/- each were printed and it sold out in three days. By 12 March a fifth edition had been printed and by May a seventh. It also appeared in Dublin, Edinburgh, Boston, Charleston, New York and Philadelphia as well as being serialized in American papers. The work was translated into Dutch editions (1776 and 1777), French (1776) and German and provoked an extensive controversy.4 July: American independence declared
  23. 1777Additional Observations on the Nature and Value of Civil Liberty, and the War with America.
  24. 1778Two Tracts on Civil Liberty, the War with America, and the Debts and Finances of the Kingdom A Free Discussion of the Doctrines of Materialism and Philosophical Necessity published correspondence with his friend Joseph Priestley

    6 October: Invited by the American Congress to become a Citizen of the United States and their first financial advisor

  25. 1779A Fast Sermon: A Sermon Delivered to A Congregation of Protestant Dissenters at Hackney An Essay on the Present State of Population in England and Wales
  26. 1780Facts Addressed to the Landholders of Great Britain, written with the radical John Horne TookePrice developed the Northampton Tables of mortality for the years 1735-1780. Though criticized by later workers these became the insurance industry standard for over fifty years and represented an enormous contribution to the development of modern life assurance.
  27. 1781Granted a doctorate (LL D) by Yale University in sole company with George WashingtonA Fast Sermon: A Discourse to a Congregation at Hackney
  28. 178230 January: Made Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in Boston
  29. 1783The State of the Public DebtsObservations on Reversionary Payments (Fourth Edition)

    The Principles of the Doctrine of Life-Annuities Explained in a Familiar Manner so as to be Intelligible to Persons not Acquainted with the Doctrine of Chances Proceedings Relative to the Ulster Assembly of Volunteer Delegates: on the Subject of a More Equal Representation of the People in the Parliament of Ireland, in a Letter to Lieutenant Colonel Sharman of the Irish Volunteers

  30. 1784Observations on the Importance of the American Revolution and the Means of Making it a Benefit to the World

    Plans for Annuities to Widows with Two Letters Thereto

  31. 178515 January: Meets with Pitt the Younger at Downing Street. Is asked to produce a plan for a Sinking Fund to reduce the National Debt. Price produces three.

    28 January: Elected to the American Philosophical Society at Philadelphia

  32. 178629 March: Pitt presents his Sinking Fund Bill to the House of Commons. Becomes law on 26 May as An Act to Reduce the National Debt. It is based on the third and, according to Price, least attractive of his three submitted plans.

    July: Writes a prefatory note to Thomas Jefferson’s statute that, in 1786, was passed by the State of Virginia as An Act for Establishing RELIGIOUS FREEDOM. The Price note and the Jefferson text were then widely distributed in broadsheet form and in the press in Britain.

    20 September: Sarah, his wife, dies

    25 September: New College, Hackney established. Price becomes a tutor

    Adds a Letter and Calculations to John Acland’s A Plan for Rendering the Poor Independent on Public Contribution; Founded on the Basis of the Friendly Societies commonly called Clubs

  33. 1787Moves to live at 2, St. Thomas’s Square, Hackney

    Sermons on the Christian Doctrine as Received by the Different Denominations of Christians

    25 April: The Evidence for a Future Period of Improvement in the State of Mankind, with the Means and Duty of Promoting it

    22 May: The [London] Society for the Purpose of Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade established. Price was invited by its committee to become a founder member but he declined due to his current work commitments. But he continued to express his support for abolition and his hearty detestation of ‘the diabolical traffick’.

    Third edition of A Review of the Principal Questions in Morals

  34. 17885 June: Gives up his post as tutor at the New College, Hackney

    October-February (1789): The Regency Crisis – Price writes an undated document for Lord Shelburne on the pros and cons of the issues at stake

  35. 17898 May: The latest attempt to repeal the Test and Corporation Acts that discriminate against dissenters is defeated in parliament. Price had long championed the cause of repeal but becomes less involved from this point on.

    Early July: George Cadogan Morgan, Price’s nephew, leaves Britain for France. He will be in Paris during the revolution and reports on events to Price in a series of letters.

    14 July: Fall of the Bastille

    4 November: The Revolution Society meets at Old Jewry to celebrate the 101st anniversary of the Glorious Revolution of 1688. In the evening Price attended a celebratory dinner of the Society in the London Tavern. He then moved a congratulatory address to the National Assembly in France.

    Late November/Early December: A Discourse on the Love of Our Country, Price’s sermon given to the Revolution Society meeting, and in which he praised the opening events of the French Revolution, is published. It stimulates a major pamphlet debate and controversy in British society.

  36. 17902 March: Defeat of a further attempt to repeal the Test and Corporation Acts

    14 July: First Bastille Day celebration held at the Crown and Anchor Tavern in the Strand, London. Price proposes a toast hoping for ‘An Alliance between France and Great Britain, for perpetuating peace, and making the world happy’.

    1 November: Reflections on the Revolution in France published by Edmund Burke in answer to Price’s sermon On the Love of our Country.

  37. 179120 February: retires from the pulpit at Old Gravel Pit Meeting House

    19 April: Dies at home in Hackney and is buried in Bunhill Fields cemetery in the City of London.

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