Joseph William Prince was born at Bath in Somerset around 1836. He was working as a groom in Bath in 1851, lodging at 5 Weymouth Place. Around 1865 he married Margaret, an Irish girl twelve years his junior. He entered the service of the Prince of Wales in February or March 1865, probably as a groom at Sandringham, although he seems also to have worked periodically at Cumberland Lodge in Windsor Great Park where the Prince of Wales had the use of part of the stables.
In 1871 he was a groom at Marlborough House stables, St Martin-in-the-Fields; in 1881 a stud groom at Windsor Great Park; and by 1891 he was head stud groom, residing in Hall Stables at Sandringham. He was still living at The Stables, Sandringham in 1901. In the 1900s his salary was £150 per annum and he was allowed £35 per anum in lieu of liveries. He retired in 1910 following the death of King Edward VII. He was allowed to retain possession of the two cottages of which he had use, one at Sandringham and one at Cumberland Lodge. In 1911 he was living at Cumberland Lodge. It seems that he died in about October 1914. His widow stayed on in the Cumberland Lodge cottage for another 18 months, when she moved to a house which she owned.
Their son, Joseph E A Prince, was born in Middlesex in 1866 and James Fiddaman became his godfather; at the time of the 1891 census he was working as a lamp trimmer at Sandringham.