Ernest Price I: Calabar’s Fourth President

 

Ernest Price and family

 

Born in East London, England, on September 18, 1874, Ernest Price answered the call to the Christian ministry and sought initial theological formation and ministerial training at the Bristol Baptist College. After graduation from Bristol, with a Bachelor of Arts degree, Price was awarded a Bachelor of Divinity degree from the University of London.

 

Price commenced his ministerial life in 1899 trying to revive a downtown church in Birmingham. It was during his time at on Graham Street that he met and married Edith Letitia  Woodward. After seven years ministering there, he went to Sheffield in 1906 to pastor the Cemetery Road Baptist Church. He spent five years of very fruitful ministry there.

 

In response to an invitation issued by the Baptist Missionary Society (BMS) Committee, Price gave up his pastorate in Sheffield in the British Midlands and, together with his wife Edith, Letitia and their son, Ernest Woodward, who was only three years old, left his homeland to serve as principal of the Calabar Theological College, which had been established by Baptists in 1843.

 

Price arrived in Jamaica in 1910 and enjoyed the relatively new facilities of Calabar College which had been relocated to Chetolah Park on Slipe Pen Road in Kingston in 1901. While residing there, Price’s family welcomed two additional children – Neville Grenville, born May 26, 1911, and Bernard Henry, born January 27, 1913. All three children of the Price family attended Calabar High School and they excelled.

 

Ernest Woodward Price became an orthopaedic surgeon and leprosy specialist. An outstanding missionary doctor, he is credited with discovering podoconiosis. Dr Price served in Nigeria, Ethiopia, Congo and in Ethiopia. He was awarded the Order of the British Empire for his contribution to medicine.

 

Neville attended the University of the West Indies and was a teacher at Calabar until 1938. After returning to England, he became a flying officer in the British army. Unfortunately, his plane was shot down over Germany, where he was for 18 months a prisoner of war.

 

While attending Calabar High School, Bernard won the Jamaica scholarship. He enrolled in St. John’s, Cambridge University where he took his (Bachelor of Medicine (M. B.) and Bachelor of Surgery (Ch. B.) and Master of Arts (M.A.). Afterward, he studied at King’s College Hospital where he took his M.R.C, ST as a certified specialist medical professional, and Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians (L.R.C.P.). From 1940 to 1943, Bernard was Lecturer in Anatomy at Birmingham University. Dr Bernard Price was awarded an M.B.E. “for gallant and distinguished services in the field” of medicine.

 

As head of Calabar College, Price was chairman of the Calabar General Committee (CGC) of Jamaica Baptist Union (JBU), one of the three main branches of organized corporate JBU life at that time. The CGC comprised all JBU ministers and it was the main corporate instrument that gave oversight to Calabar Theological College. Annual meetings of the CGC took place in the context of the JBU annual General Assembly. Price also chaired the Calabar Sub-Committee, the small group that carried out some of the functions of the CGC in that organization’s absence. Because he served in these capacities, Price spent many years as a member of the JBU Executive Committee and he had a profound influence on the policies adopted by the Union.

 

Price was unafraid of hard work. He accepted the responsibility of Editor of the JBU’s publication, the Jamaica Baptist Reporter, which enjoyed wide circulation in JBU churches in the early years of the twentieth century.

 

In addition to all the other areas of JBU life in which he served, Price planted “Christ Church,” a Baptist Church in the community of Jones Pen (now, Jones Town) which was near to Calabar College. That church became a thriving centre of Baptist witness. At one time or another, Price also served as Moderator for several churches including Mamby Park, Moneague and Richmond.

 

As president of Calabar Theological College, Price worked in close cooperation with David Davis, an Australian Baptist who, like Price, had trained for the ministry at Bristol Baptist College. Both men threw themselves with zeal into the work at Calabar College.

 

Price showed deep interest in his students’ welfare and development, and he delivered the sermon at the ordination service for many of the Calabar graduates. He also officiated the weddings of many of his former students. Undoubtedly, Price had a vital influence on the life of the JBU ministerial family. JBU rewarded him by making him its representative in several national institutions.

Price’s contribution to church life in Jamaica was not restricted to JBU. He was also a significant contributor to the ecumenical movement in the country. In 1913, just three years after arriving in Jamaica, he was selected as president of the Kingston Ministers’ Fraternal. He represented Baptists in the leadership team of Jamaica Council of Evangelical Churches and, in 1918, he served as that organization’s president. In 1924, he was a member of the Executive Committee of the Council of Christian Churches in Jamaica, a precursor to the Jamaica Council of Churches. Price was also actively involved in the national leadership of multi-church-sponsored organizations such as the Young Women’s Christian Association and the Boys’ Brigade. Jamaica Baptists and the church community in general held Price in high esteem.

 

After serving in Jamaica for 27 years, Price resigned and returned with his family to England in 1937. His was a significant contribution to JBU’s work in education and perhaps the part of his work that gave him most satisfaction was his contribution to the development of Calabar High School – to which we turn in the next blogpost.