Birth

Enlistment Information

Military Service

Embarkation Information

Military Awards

Death

Biographical Notes

Robert John Price was born on 30 June 1884 at Invercargill, the younger son of Charles and Mary Ann (née McMurray) Price. Charles from England and Mary from Northern Ireland married in 1881 at St John’s Anglican Church, Invercargill. They had two sons – Charles John (1882) and Robert John (1884). Charles Price, a cab proprietor, died on 12 March 1885 at Invercargill, just 29 years old. “The funeral of the late Mr Charles Price took place yesterday, and was. considering the boisterous nature of the weather, largely attended About a dozen vehicles and a number of horsemen composed the cortege, which moved out of town to St. John's Cemetery, while the fire bell solemnly tolled.” [Southland Times. 16 March 1885.] By his Will, which he had signed the day before his death, he left to his wife Maryann the whole of his estate to be sold. After expenses were paid, the remainder was to be given to his wife to start in business or to go home if she wished. “On Wednesday evening a successful social entertainment was given in the Clifton public hall in aid of the widow of the late Mr Charles Price. There were songs and recitations and dances, and the persons present, numbering perhaps 150, thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated the festivities.” [Southland Times. 8 May 1885. Mary Anne remarried in 1886, to Charles King by whom there was one daughter and who was to die in 1889. She married for a third time in 1890, to Edwin Williamson Gowdy by whom she had six children. After some years in Southland, Mary Ann Gowdy was in Ferguson Street, St Kilda in 1911, her son Robert John Price, a blacksmith, with her. By 1914 Mary Ann and her husband had moved to the North Island.

Robert John Price, a blacksmith, 85 Church Street, Timaru, was listed on the 1916 Reserve Rolls. Medically examined at Christchurch in November 1916, he was rejected as unfit for the Military Forces – below standard. He enlisted on 20 January1917 at Timaru and was examined there on 29 January by the Travelling Medical Board. R. J. Price was listed with the men belonging to the South Canterbury Military District who left for camp on 11 April 1917. He was then single. He married Mary Agnes Gird Herbert at the Mornington Methodist Church on 16 June 1917. A blacksmith at 18 Dee Street, Timaru, and of Church of England affiliation, he named his wife as next-of-kin – Mrs R. J. Price, 10 Beaumont Road, Dunedin. Private R. J. Price embarked with the Wellington Infantry Regiment of the 28th Reinforcements, departing per the “Waitemata” on 14 July 1917, transhipping to the “Norman” on 28 August, and disembarking at Plymouth, England on 4 September 1917. He returned to New Zealand per the “Paparoa”, embarking at Glasgow on 1 April 1919 and disembarking at Wellington on 24 May 1919. He was discharged on 25 November 1919, no longer physically fit for war Service on account of illness contracted on Active Service (influenza, hernia). He had served in Western Europe and was awarded the British War Medal and the Victory Medal.

Late in 1919, Robert was back at Beaumont Street, Mornington, Dunedin. For many years, from the 1920s through to the 1940s, Robert worked at the mills at Milton. Mary Agnes Price died at Balclutha on 24 February 1938, the funeral leaving her mother’s Dunedin residence for the Anderson’s Bay Crematorium. Robert John Price died at his residence, 28 Beaumont Street, Belleknowes, Dunedin, on 3 November 1948, aged 64 years. After a service at the funeral directors’ chapel, he was cremated at Anderson’s Bay. His ashes may have been scattered or placed in a niche at the Crematorium with Mary’s. There are plaques to their memory in the Court of Reflections. Robert was survived by their only daughter, Josephine, who was born in 1920. Robert’s older brother, Charles John Price, also served in World War One, as did two half-brothers – Harold Gowdy, who had gone to the Front at the same time as Charles Price and was killed in action in 1916 at the Somme, and Willie Gowdy.

Sources

Auckland War Memorial Museum Cenotaph Database [24 February 2025]; NZ BDM Indexes (Department of Internal Affairs) [03 March 2025]; Southland Times, 13 & 16 March 1885, Timaru Herald, 10 April 1917, Evening Star, 25 February 1938, Otago Daily Times, 4 November 1948 (Papers Past) [07 January 2015; 03 & 04 March 2025]; Andersons Bay Crematorium records (Dunedin City Council) [03 March 2025]

External Links

• Auckland War Memorial Museum Cenotaph record
• Military personnel file

Related Documents

No documents available. 

Researched and Written by

Teresa Scott, SC Genealogy Society

Currently Assigned to

Not assigned.