Price, Thomas (Tom)

Composer

b Rhymney, Monmouthshire, S Wales 1857, d Merthyr Tydfil, Glamorgan, S Wales 1925. From the age of 10 he worked in the S Wales coal-mines but gradually taught himself music, partly by joining local choirs. He began to win prizes for composition, including one for a setting of a Tennyson poem. Eventually he made music his profession, becoming a peripatetic teacher employed for 18 years by the Glamorgan education authority. At Merthyr’s Hope Presbyterian Ch he served for some years as Precentor, and both conducted and adjudicated at Psalmody festivals Among his compositions were several anthems and part-songs popular throughout Wales, and a dramatic cantata The Prodigal Son; he was also the musical editor for Young Wales and of Y Solffaydd. His work is included in the 1928 2nd edn of the Scottish Church Hymnary, and in the major 1929 Methodist collection Llyfr Emynau a Thonau (‘The Book of Hymns and Tunes’). No.73.