PRICE, Sir David (1924-2014).

Sir David Price was born in London on 20 November 1924 and attended Eton. He won a scholarship to Cambridge which was interrupted by the Second World War, when he served in the Scots Guards as a staff officer in Trieste. On his return he read history at Trinity College, Cambridge and became president of the Cambridge Union in 1948, and spent a year in Yale. He became an economist and married Rosemary Evelyn in 1960, they have one daughter. Rosemary suffered an accident in 1964 which led to Sir David’s political interest in disability.

Price was shortlisted for Grantham before becoming the first (Conservative) MP for the new seat of Eastleigh in 1955. In his own eyes a ‘radical Tory’, he held junior ministerial posts in the board of Trade, before becoming opposition spokesman on education and science in 1964. He returned to a government in 1971, as a junior minister for aerospace. Sir David held his seat in Eastleigh until his retirement in 1992, and died in January 2014.

Click here to listen to the full interview with Sir David Price in the British Library.