Sydney James Price

• Matriculated: Did not matriculate

• Born: 22 May 1895

• Died: 15 September 1916

• Regiment: Suffolk Regiment

• Grave/Memorial: Thiepval Memorial: Pier and Face 1C and 2A

Family background

b. 22 May 1895 as the second (twin) son (in a family of five) of George Price (1845–1931) and his second wife, Ann Duckworth Price (née Crompton) (1864–1940) (m. 1891), of Russell House, Grange Road, Sutton, Surrey. At the time of the 1891 Census, the family had one servant; at the time of the 1901 and 1911 Censuses a governess and three servants, and three servants, respectively.

Parents and antecedents

Price’s paternal grandfather, George Price [I] (1802–69) was born in Cwmhilly, Radnorshire, and was a Primitive Methodist Minister; his wife, Jane Farr (1807–95), was a local preacher in Hampshire before they married.

Price’s father, George Price [II], was born in Salisbury, Wiltshire, and at the time of the 1861 Census he was an apprentice grocer in Fordingbridge, Hampshire; in the 1871 Census he was recorded as a “shopman” in a grocer’s shop in Marlborough, Wiltshire. But before the 1881 Census he had moved to Surrey, where he and his wife, Rosa Emily Hawkins (1851–78), initially lived in Benhilton. She was from Marlborough, where they married in 1877. But she died in September 1878, possibly as a result of childbirth. At the time of the 1881 Census he was a grocer employing four men and a boy, living at 7/8 High Street, Sutton; his mother was his housekeeper and they had two servants. Things were unchanged at the time of the 1891 Census but later that year he married Ann Duckworth Crompton. (1864–1940), a schoolteacher.

Price’s maternal grandfather was James Crompton (1836–1911), born in West Moseley, Manchester, who was also a Primitive Methodist Minister, with circuits mainly in Lancashire although he spent two years in Oxford and later two years in Cambridge. By the time James was 12 both his parents had died, and his formal education was minimal; he attended three different night schools but no day school. However, he read French fluently, had a knowledge of Hebrew and Greek, believed in the study of science and had a certificate by examination in Chemistry and Geology with an additional certificate to teach these subjects. He was related to Samuel Crompton (1753–1827), the inventor of the Spinning Mule. Crompton and a fellow preacher were arrested in Darwen in August 1873 for obstructing a footpath while holding an open-air service. They were fined by the magistrates but refused to pay the fine. Crompton spent the night in the cells but was released the next day when a well-wisher paid his fine. His colleague spent some days in Preston Gaol before a similar well-wisher paid his fine.

Siblings and their families

Brother of:

(1) George Crompton (1893–1965);

(2) Vincent Ramo (Rains), Sydney’s twin (1895–1973); married (1927) Dorothy Tait (1902–69); two sons;

(3) Margaret Mona (1897–1979); later Ling after her marriage in 1926 to William Harold Godfrey Mackwood Ling, LMSSA, FRCS, MRCS, LRCP, FRCS (1899–1973); three sons;

(4) Herbert (“Bart”) Leo (1899–1943).

George Crompton Price attended Mill Hill School in 1911 and was given an Officers’ Training Corps Cadet Commission in the South Staffordshire Regiment as Second Lieutenant on 2 December 1914. By February 1915 he may have been attached to the Royal Engineers as an officer, but he relinquished his Commission on 12 May 1915, and from 14 July 1916 until his demobilization on 1 January 1919 he served as a Rifleman (i.e. Private) in three Battalions of the London Regiment: the 1/5th (London Rifle Brigade), the 1st Entrenching (Pioneer) Battalion, and the 1/8th (Post Office Rifles). After the war he became a school-teacher, and was still living with his parents in 1926. By 1939 he was a journalist, and still living with his mother.

Vincent Ramo served as a Captain with the 3rd Battalion, the Royal Berkshire Regiment, was mentioned in dispatches in 1917, and survived the war. He was a Commoner at Magdalen from 1919 to 1922, and achieved a Blue in both Cricket (1919–22, Captain 1921) and Rugby (1919–21); he is best remembered as a cricketer who played in 38 first-class matches for Surrey and Oxford University. During his final year he was the President of Magdalen’s Junior Common Room and in 1922 he was awarded a 4th in Literae Humaniores. In 1920 he got a 3rd in the Bar Examination. He later became a Director of Foy, Morgan and Co. Ltd, Timber Merchants.

One of his two sons, John Scott Price (b. 1930), read Physiology, Politics and Philosophy at Magdalen (Commoner 1951–55), graduated with a 1st, and worked thereafter in Genetics and Evolutionary Psychiatry.

Margaret Mona became a medical doctor in Keighley, Yorkshire, the town where her husband had been born and where his parents continued to live. Her husband spent the last few years of his life as a Consultant at Noble’s Hospital on the Isle of Man, the island’s largest hospital. One of their sons, Robin Sydney Mackwood Ling (b. 1927), read Natural Sciences (Physiology) at Magdalen (1944 and 1945–50), and was awarded a 2nd class degree in 1949 before becoming an orthopaedic surgeon. His daughter, Katherine Tessa Mackwood Ling, Sydney’s grand-niece, read History at Magdalen from 1980 to 1883.

Herbert Leo joined the 1/28th (County of London) Battalion, the London Regiment (Artists Rifles), in 1918 and was promoted Lance-Corporal. He was sent to an Officer Cadet Battalion, probably the 2/28th Battalion, and received his commission just before the Armistice. He then read Mathematics at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, where he was awarded a Half-Blue for Hockey (1920–22) and Water Polo (1919–22) and played in two first-class rugby games (1920 and 1922). He represented England at hockey and rugby and is still the holder – since 6 February 1999 jointly – of the record (10 seconds) for the fastest try ever scored in an international match. After graduating, he taught for two years at Uppingham School, Rutland, and then moved to Christ’s Hospital, where he became a housemaster. In 1931 he followed Francis S. Young and became a distinguished Headmaster of Bishop’s Stortford College, where he remained until his death in 1943.

Education

Price attended Homefield Preparatory School, Sutton, Surrey (founded 1870), from c.1902 to 1909, and then, from 1909 to 1914, Bishop’s Stortford College, Hertfordshire, where he became a School Monitor, a member of the Games Committee, Editor of the School Magazine, Head of his House, and finally Captain of School. He was a member of the First XV (1911–13, Vice-Captain 1912, Captain 1913), the First football XI (1913–14, Vice-Captain 1914), the First cricket XI (1912–14), and the First water polo VII (Vice-Captain 1912–14), where his proficiency was described as “altogether extraordinary”. On 5 January 1915, after Price had left the College and was seeking a Temporary Commission, his Headmaster, Francis Samuel Young (1871–1934: Headmaster 1900–31), wrote a reference on his behalf to Lord Kitchener (1850–1916), the then Secretary of State for War, in which he said:

[Price] is also a boy of very high character; a splendid athlete, and one, who while at school[,] was exceedingly popular with his fellows, and he had marked power of exercising authority over them. He was Senior Prefect in the School House, and maintained excellent discipline, and showed good qualities of leadership. On every ground I should place very high his claims to be appointed to a Commission in His Majesty’s Forces.

The sporting achievements of Price’s twin brother were equally exceptional, and in 1914 Magdalen accepted both of them for entry as Commoners in the October of that year. Vincent Ramo survived the war, and matriculated at Magdalen in 1919, but Sydney James did not matriculate and his obituarist wrote of him:

In his work and administration thoroughness, one thinks, was his distinguishing characteristic. He had an intense and instinctive dislike of an unsound thing or idea. Sometimes undemonstrative to the verge of grimness, his influence here belongs to the class of things which will permanently endure. The School, both while he was at it and after, came emphatically first. To a casual observer he might at times have seemed too mentally erect, reserved, even indifferent; but to those he admitted to his friendship he showed a keenness, a shrewd judgment, an intense sweetness of disposition, and a charm which they can never forget.

War service

On the outbreak of war, Price tried to join the Royal Navy but was rejected because of “incontinence of urine”, so on 15 September 1914, he and his twin brother, like other Old Stortfordians, attested for the 19th (Service) Battalion, the Royal Fusiliers (2nd University and Public Schools Battalion, formed 11 September 1914), and were accepted as Privates. But on 4 January 1915 Price applied for a Temporary Commission in either the Norfolk or the Dorset Regiment and on 12 January 1915 he was discharged from the 19th Battalion and attached to the 10th (Reserve) Battalion of the Royal Norfolk Regiment as a Second Lieutenant (London Gazette, no. 29,041, 15 January 1915, p. 490). He stayed with the Norfolk Regiment at Colchester until around 8 March 1916, embarked for France on 12 March 1916 after paying a final visit to his old school two days previously, and, together with 30 OR (other-ranks) reinforcements, reported for duty with the 9th (Service) Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment at Heerzele, in northern France, mid-way between Wormhout and the Franco-Belgian border, on 19 March – though his transfer was not formalized until 1 July 1916. The 9th Battalion had been in France since 31 August 1915 as part of 71st Brigade, 6th Division, taken heavy losses at Loos (seven officers and 137 ORs killed, wounded or missing), and spent the rest of 1915 in and out of the trenches near Ypres.

After joining the 9th Battalion, Price spent about five uneventful months either training near Calais (3–12 May), or, more actively, in and out of the trenches in the Ypres Salient (12 May–2 August). During the first period, he injured a leg and was in Lahore British General Hospital, Calais, from 14 to 27 April, and during the second period he sprained an ankle and was in No. 14 General Hospital, Wimereux, from 13 to 18 August.

Meanwhile, on 2 August, the Battalion had travelled by train to Bienvilliers, then marched to Beauval and arrived at Mailly-Maillet two days later, where it took over the trenches for a week from the 9th Battalion, the Norfolk Regiment, with whom it was brigaded. After spending several days in the trenches, the Battalion rested and trained at Louvencourt until 10 September, when it took over the trenches at Ginchy from the 4th Battalion, the Grenadier Guards (3rd Guards Brigade, Guards Division), less than a mile away from where R.P. Stanhope and H.D. Vernon were waiting for the big push on 15 September. On 13 September Price’s Battalion was ordered to attack the enemy trenches to the north of Ginchy at 06.20 hours, and although they took two out of the four lines, they suffered heavy losses. Then, at 07.30 hours, ‘A’ Company was ordered to attack north-eastwards towards the Quadrilateral, a heavily defended area on the Redan Ridge, that was just over two miles away, and although it managed to take the road joining Ginchy and Leuze Wood, it was held up by machine-gun fire and took more heavy losses, which amounted that day to 17 officers and 195 ORs killed wounded or missing.

Price rejoined the 9th Battalion late that day with a draft of replacements, i.e. just in time to take part in the 6th Division’s assault on Les Boeufs and Morval on 15 September 1916. The Division was tasked with taking these two final objectives and then establishing a line on the ridge, and when the attack began at 06.20 hours, four Battalions set out, only to be stopped before Price’s Battalion and the 1st Battalion, the Sherwood Foresters, were sent out at 08.20 hours in support. But they, too, were soon held up by very heavy machine-gun fire from the Quadrilateral and very heavy shelling, and by the time the 9th Battalion of the Suffolk Regiment was relieved at 23.00 hours by a Battalion from the Durham Light Infantry, it had lost 11 officers and 35 ORs killed in action, seven officers and 990 ORs wounded, and two officers, one of whom was Price, missing, aged 21.

According to Price’s obituarist, he could have returned to base in advance of the battle, but obtained special permission to stay with his Battalion, and his Company Commander, Captain Lionel Ensor, MC (1888–1936), who was badly wounded on 15 September, confirmed this when he wrote to Price’s mother that her son had shown “particular pluck in getting special leave from the Division to take part in the Battle [on] the second day – as we had been rather cut up the first day.” He continued: “Sydney was down at the Base before we went over the top, arrived at our Headquarters after the first day’s battle with a draft, he should then have gone back to the Base but he got special leave to join in that night.”

Price has no known grave but must have died less than two miles away from Flers, just to the north of Ginchy, where H.W. Garton, E.K. Parsons and E.H.L. Southwell had been killed in action earlier on the same day, and less than a mile from the place where Stanhope and Vernon had met their deaths. He is commemorated on Pier and Face 1C and 2A on the Thiepval Memorial, and also on the stone tablets in the Memorial Hall at Bishop’s Stortford College. His family was awarded a gratuity of £64 2s. 6d.

Bibliography

For the books and archives referred to here in short form, refer to the Slow Dusk Bibliography and Archival Sources.

Printed sources

Ebenezer Hall, ‘Rev. George Price’ [obituary], Primitive Methodist Magazine, volume 8 of the new series (1870), pp. 547–52.

[Anon.], ‘Primitive Methodist Preachers Fined for Street Preaching’, Western Daily Press, no. 4.759 (27 August 1873), p. 4.

[Anon.], ‘Second Lieutenant S.J. Price’ [obituary], The Times, no. 41,299 (16 October 1916), p. 10.

[Anon.], ‘Oxford’s Sacrifice: Short Notices: Magdalen College’ [obituary], The Oxford Magazine, 35 (Extra Number) (10 November 1916), p. 17.

[Anon.], ‘S.J. Price’ [obituary], The Stortfordian, no. 90 (December 1916), pp. 87–8.

[Anon.], ‘H.L. Price’s Try’, The Times, no. 43,245 (20 January 1923), p. 4.

[Anon.], ‘Mr H.L. Price’ [obituary], The Times, no. 49,601 (19 July 1943), p. 6.

Leinster-Mackay (1984), pp. 115, 265, 326.

McCarthy (1998), p. 100.

Archival sources:

MCA: Ms. 876 (III), vol. 3.

MCA: PR 32/C/3/975–978 (President Warren’s War-Time Correspondence, Letters relating to S.J. Price [1915–1916]).

WO95/1625.

WO339/26317.

WO339/31865.

WO339/72073.