Nationality American | ||
 | ||
Born 23 December 1856 ( 1856-12-23 ) Albany, New York Resting place Albany Rural Cemetery, Menands, New York Alma mater The Albany Academy class of 1875 Known for expertise in carillons; advocacy of civil service reforms Spouse(s) Harriet Langdon (Pruyn) Rice (1868–1939) Children William Gorham Rice, Jr. (1892–1979) Died 10 September 1945, Guilderland, New York, United States Residence Albany, New York, United States | ||
William Gorham Rice, Sr. (1856–1945) was an American state and federal government official from Albany, New York, and civic activist engaged in the reform of the civil service system. He was a biographer of Grover Cleveland, and became an authority on carillons in America and Europe and authored several books on the topic.
Contents
Biography
William Gorham Rice was born 23 December 1856 in Albany, New York to William A. Rice (1820–1906) and Hannah (Seely) Rice (1835–1911). Rice was a direct patrilineal descendant of Edmund Rice, an early English immigrant to the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Rice attended The Albany Academy, graduating in 1875. He married Harriet Langdon Pruyn (1868–1939) on 10 Feb 1892 in Albany, daughter of Congressman John V. L. Pruyn. They had one child, William Gorham Rice, Jr. (1892–1979), who became a law professor at University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Rice became active in Democratic Party politics in New York. He was appointed to the staff of Governor Samuel Tilden as assistant paymaster general of the New York National Guard with the rank of colonel. From 1883 to 1889 Rice served as secretary to Governors Grover Cleveland and David B. Hill. In 1895 he was appointed to the United States Civil Service Commission, filling the vacancy created when Theodore Roosevelt resigned and serving until 1898. In 1903, he was a candidate for mayor of Albany, and in 1914 a candidate for Lieutenant Governor of New York, but he lost both of these elections. In 1915 he became a member of the New York State Civil Service Commission, serving as president from 1919 to 1920 and again from 1931 to 1937. From 1922 to 1929 he was chairman of the Bureau of Public Personnel Administration, a private organization that promoted the reform of the Civil Service System.
Rice and his wife were authorities on carillons and they wrote several books about them. In 1927, Rice was the main promoter building the Albany City Hall carillon as a memorial to soldiers killed in World War I. He was also a collector of documents related to Grover Cleveland, and the papers Rice donated to the New York State Library included several newspaper and magazine articles on Cleveland, as well as many of his speeches and letters.
Rice died 10 September 1945 in Guilderland, New York and was buried at the Albany Rural Cemetery.