Editing Harry Price (section)

==Early life==
Although Price claimed his birth was in [[Shropshire]] he was actually born in London in [[Red Lion Square]]<ref name="hall1">{{cite book |last1=Hall |first1=Trevor |title=Search for Harry Price |date=October 1978 |publisher=Gerald Duckworth & Co Ltd |isbn=978-0715611432 |pages=26–27, 36–38 |edition=First}}</ref> on the site of the [[South Place Ethical Society]]'s Conway Hall.<ref name="Ref-1">''Harry Price: The Psychic Detective'' by Richard Morris, [[Stroud]], 2006</ref><ref>Hall (1978) pp. 25–30</ref> He was only son and second child of Edward Ditcher Price (1834-1906), then traveller (salesman) for the paper manufacturing firm of Edward Saunders and Son, and his wife Emma Randall ''nee'' Meech (1860-1902).<ref name=odnb>Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Volume 45'', publisher Oxford University Press (2004), p.291, article by John L. Randall.</ref> His father being born at [[Rodington]] in Shropshire, Price spent much time in the county in holidays with relatives.<ref name=odnb/> He was educated in [[New Cross]], first at Waller Road Infants School and then [[Haberdashers' Aske's Hatcham College|Haberdashers' Aske's Hatcham Boys' School]].<ref name=morris>Morris (2006)</ref> He completed his education at [[Goldsmiths, University of London|Goldsmiths College]], studying chemistry, photography, electrical and mechanical engineering.<ref name=odnb/> In ''Who's Who'', he claimed to have been educated in Shropshire as well as London but did not name his schools.<ref name=www>{{cite book|title=Who Was Who, 1941-1950|year=1952|publisher=A. and C. Black, London|page=937}}</ref>

At 15, Price founded the [[Carlton Dramatic Society]]<ref>Tabori (1950) p. 22</ref> and wrote plays, including a drama, about his early experience with a poltergeist<ref>''The Sceptic'', performed 2 December 1898 at Amersham Hall</ref> which he said took place at a haunted unnamed manor house in Shropshire.<ref>Tabori (1950) p. 25</ref>

According to Richard Morris, in his biography ''Harry Price: The Psychic Detective'' (2006), Price came to the attention of the press when he claimed an early interest in space-telegraphy. He set up a receiver and transmitter between [[Telegraph Hill, Lewisham]] and St Peter's Church [[Brockley]] and captured a spark on a photographic plate. This, though, was nothing more than Price writing a press release saying he had performed the experiment, as nothing was verified. 

The young Price also had an avid interest in coin collecting and wrote several articles for ''The Askean'', the magazine for Haberdashers' School. In his autobiography, ''Search for Truth'', written between 1941 and 1942, Price claimed he was involved with archaeological excavations in [[Greenwich Park]], London, but, in earlier writings on Greenwich, he denied any such involvement.<ref>Hall (1978) pp. 102–113</ref> He also claimed to have uncovered Roman coins while earlier excavating at the site of [[Uriconium]] in [[Wroxeter]], Shropshire, serialised an article on "Shropshire Tokens and Mints" in the ''Wellington Journal and Shrewsbury News'' from 1902 to 1904, at age 21 published his first book, on ''The Coins of Kent'', and served as honorary curator of numismatics at Ripon Museum, North Yorkshire, in 1904.<ref name=sm1>''Shropshire Magazine'', article by Kenneth G. Kinrade, "The Life Story of a Shropshire "Ghost Hunter", part 1, September 1954, p.20.</ref>

From around May 1908 Price continued his interest in archaeology at [[Pulborough]], Sussex, where he had moved prior to marrying [[Constance Mary Knight]], only daughter of Robert Hastings Knight, on 1 August that year.<ref name=odnb/> As well as working as a salesman for paper merchants Edward Saunders & Sons, he wrote for two local Sussex newspapers: the ''West Sussex Gazette'' and the ''Southern Weekly News'' in which he related his remarkable propensity for discovering 'clean' antiquities.<ref name="Ref-1"/> One of these, a 'silver' ingot (discovered by Richard Morris to be housed in Price's collection of artefacts at Senate House, University of London and made of base materials) was stamped around the time of the last Roman emperor [[Flavius Augustus Honorius|Honorius]]. A few years later, another celebrated Sussex archaeologist, [[Charles Dawson]], found a brick at [[Pevensey Castle|Pevensey Fort]] in Sussex, which was purportedly made in Honorius' time. In 1910 Professor [[Francis J. Haverfield]] of Oxford University, the country's foremost expert on Roman history and a Fellow of the Royal Academy, declared the ingot to be a fake.<ref name="Ref-1"/>
A report for the ''Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries'' (number 23, pages 121–9) in the same year reported that:
{{blockquote|
'...&nbsp;the double axe type of silver ingot was well known and dated from late Imperial times but the one recovered from Sussex was an inferior copy of one found at the [[Tower of London]], with alterations to give it an air of authenticity. Both the shape and lettering betrayed its origin.'
}}

Through his father, who died in 1906, he inherited a share in the paper firm which gave him more independent means to support his interests.<ref name=sm2/> At the start of the [[First World War]] he attempted to enlist for service but was medically rejected because of heart strain though he offered the [[Royal Flying Corps]] assistance with colour filters for [[aerial photography]]. At his Pulborough home he set up a workshop for making shell-fuses and in 1918 worked as night shift foreman at a munitions works in [[Tottenham]].<ref name=sm1/>