PRICE, Thomas (b.c.1645), of Lombard Street, London.

Published in The History of Parliament: the House of Commons 1660-1690, ed. B.D. Henning, 1983
Available from Boydell and Brewer

Constituency

Dates

Family and Education

b. c.1645, s. of Thomas Price, Cordwainer, of London. m. (1) 11 June 1674, Mary (d. 7 June 1678), 1s. d.v.p. 2da.; (2) 21 Dec. 1679, Dorothy Price of London, 1s. d.v.p. 2da.1

Offices Held

Member Goldsmiths’ Co. 1669.

Biography

Price was an orphan by 1659 when he was apprenticed to Thomas Carter, a London goldsmith, and he was so successful in his calling that he took out his livery in June 1671, only two years after being made free of the Goldsmiths Company. He was established as a banker in Lombard Street by 1675, and in association with Edward Backwell and Jeremiah Snow, a London banker who stood for Mitchell in 1673, lent the crown ‘great sums of money’ at 6 per cent interest. In 1680 he became a partner with John Parsons in the Fire Office, an insurance company founded by Nicholas Barbon. When Lord Rochester (Laurence Hyde) took over the Treasury, Price began to handle remittances to the army in Ireland and Tangier at 10 per cent.2

Price was returned to James II’s Parliament for Mitchell, where he was a stranger, presumably with the support of the Government. No committees can be positively ascribed to him. At the end of the year it was discovered that his brother-in-law, John Price, who had been appointed receiver-general of the Irish revenues in 1682, was in arrears, and that John Price had paid into the hands of Thomas Price £10,602 belonging to the crown. As a result, Thomas Price’s estate real and personal, which was said to be of ‘a very great value’ and included houses in the St. Martin’s Lane area, as well as his share in the Fire Office, was seized by the crown. Price’s business never recovered from this and he faded into obscurity. The date of his death has not been ascertained.3

Ref Volumes: 1660-1690

Author: Eveline Cruickshanks

Notes

  • 1. Soc. of Genealogists, Boyd’s London units 2317 and 2318; Goldsmiths’ Co. recs.
  • 2. Goldsmiths’ Co. recs.; Hilton Price, Handbook London Bankers, 134; Relton, Fire Insurance Cos. 19 et seq.; Cal. Treas. Bks. iv. 540; CSP Dom. 1683-4, pp. 276, 337; 1685, pp. 9, 248.
  • 3. Add. 15892, f. 39; Hilton Price, 134; Cal. Treas. Bks. ix. 818, 819-20, 1232-3.