Dr Richard Price of Newington Green

Newington Green Unitarian Church is London's oldest Nonconformist place of worship still in use. Among its famous worshippers was 'mother of feminism' Mary Wollstonecraft; her friend and mentor Dr Richard Price was the church's most prominent minister.

Price was born in Llangeinor, Glamorgan in 1723 and came to London in 1740 to study; from 1758 he was preacher at Newington Green. He put forward politically radical ideas in his preaching. In 1789, as the Bastille fell, he preached a pro-revolutionary sermon On Love of Country. He similarly supported the American Revolution, arguing that while the monarchy was legitimate in Britain because it had the consent of the people (in the 1688 Bill of Rights), there was no such consent from the Americans or French.

Price was not only a great promoter of liberty and equality and political and religious radical. He also invented actuarial life tables, still used today, and advised America and France on their financial systems. He was a fellow of the Royal Society, had the Freedom of the City of London, and received an honorary degree from Yale University.

When Price died in 1791, he was honoured by a national day of mourning in France.