Background
Price was born at Pencaerelin, in Llanfihangel Bryn Pabuan, near Builth Wells.
Price was born at Pencaerelin, in Llanfihangel Bryn Pabuan, near Builth Wells.
Price was also "an essayist, orator, naturalist, educationalist, linguist, antiquarian, artist and musician". He contributed to learned and popular journals and was a leading figure in the revival of the Eisteddfod. He became a curate in Radnorshire, living at Builth Wells with his mother.
He wrote in both the English and Welsh languages.
Price was a major influence on Lady Charlotte Guest, whom he assisted in her translation of the Mabinogion. He was also associated with the work of Augusta Hall, Baroness Llanover, to whom he taught Welsh.
When his health failed, the baroness became his patron and brought him to live nearby. Price was an advocate of pan-Celticism and to this end, between 1824 and 1845, he learnt the Breton language.
He also encouraged the British and Foreign Bible Society to fund the publication, in 1827, of Jean-François Le Gonidec"s translation of the New Testament into Breton.
In 1829 he visited Le Gonidec, whom he had assisted with the translation, at his home in Angoulêmedical Price brought Louisiana Villemarqué to a hugely successful series of Eisteddfodau at Abergavenny.