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Cormell Price

Cormell Price
Born	1835 Birmingham
Died	4 May 1910 Rottingdean,Sussex
Resting place	Rottingdean
Occupation	Teacher
Education	King Edward's School, Birmingham
Alma mater	Brasenose, Oxford
Spouse	Sarah Ann Hopper
Children	Cormell Edward Price

Cormell Price (1835 – 1910) was the founding headmaster of the United Services College at Westward Ho!. His principles, including “obedience, cleanliness, courtesy and courage”, were much admired by one of his pupils, Rudyard Kipling, who portrayed Price as “The Head” in Stalky & Co. Price attended Oxford University, while there a group of friends, which included Edward Burne-Jones, came up from Birmingham and they, along with friends from their respective colleges, became known as the Birmingham Set. They now included William Morris who gave Price the nickname Crom.

Early life

Price was educated at Birmingham's King Edward grammar school where he was one of a group of boys, including Burne-Jones and Charles Faulkner, most of whom went up to the Oxford where William Morris was introduced to the group by Burne-Jones both of whom were at Exeter College. Price attended Brasenose College graduating in 1859 with a BA (MA 1865, BCL 1867). Earlier in 1856 he, along with Burne-Jones, Morris, Richard Watson Dixon and others, helped to found The Oxford and Cambridge Magazine. After graduation he went on to study medicine at the Radcliffe Infirmary but he disliked surgery and left after eighteen months in 1860, and travelled to Russia where he tutored the son of Count Orloff-Davidoff.

Personal and professional life

After travelling in Europe with the Russian family he returned to England in 1863 and took up a teaching job at Haileybury College. He remained there for eleven years leaving as head of the Modern Side to become the first headmaster of the United Services College. Amongst his students was Rudyard Kipling who started at the college in January 1878; Kipling would go on to portray life at "the Coll" in a series of school stories published in magazines and brought together as Stalky & Co, published by Faber in 1899. Kipling was chosen to give a speech at Price's eventual retirement as he approached 60 in 1894, a step taken as financial difficulties led to proposed cost-cutting with which he disagreed.

Broadway Tower

From 1866, with barrister C J Stone a fellow alumnus from Brasenose College, he rented Broadway Tower in Worcestershire a lease held until 1878. Its use as a weekend and holiday retreat was shared at times by those whose friendship he had maintained since school and university days. Amongst these were the Morrisses, the Burne-Jones, and fellow Brasenose graduate Charles Faulkner, who was now a mathematics fellow at University College, Oxford.

An example of these friends enjoying themselves was a trip up the Thames in August 1880. A week in Morris's "Ark", passed with Morris and his family, William De Morgan and two more friends as they sailed in stages between Morris's two homes: Kelmscott House and Kelmscott Manor. This relationship would last until Morris's death, Price was a witness to Morris's will in September 1896 shortly before he died the following month.

St Margaret's Church, Rottingdean

After retirement Price married Sarah Hopper in 1895, she had been in service at the College and was 28 years his junior. They had a son called Cormell Edward in 1898 and a daughter five years later, a second daughter died in infancy. The family moved to Rudgwick, Sussex when Price was dying of throat cancer; he spent the last weeks of his life in the Burne-Jones's holiday home in Rottingdean and he died on 4 May 1910 and was buried the churchyard at Rottingdean near the graves of Edward and Georgiana Burne-Jones.