"That Man Partridge": EA Partridge, His Thoughts and Times

Bruce Grainger is head of the Public Services Department, Macdonald
Library, McGill University.

Edward Alexander Partridge was a pioneer prairie farmer and a remarkable
farm leader, who played a key role in prairie farmers’ response to
harsh economic conditions. He was active in the original farmers’
union, the campaigns for wheat pooling, and, initially, the Progressive
Party. From Partridge’s utopian political book A War on Poverty, J.S.
Woodsworth later lifted the phrase “Co-operative Commonwealth” when
naming the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) party.

Because Partridge’s personal papers have not survived, the author has
limited himself to outlining the farmers’ movements of the time and
Partridge’s role in them. He has relied heavily on monographic sources
(to the exclusion of nearly all periodical literature) and on the
archives of the relevant organizations and businesses with which
Partridge was involved. No attempt has been made to provide a
description of Partridge’s homestead, his Ontario birthplace, or even
of prairie life at the time. The portrait of Partridge on the front
cover is the sole illustration in the book. Little sense of the person
or of the passion underlying Partridge’s drive for economic justice is
conveyed; for that, the reader is advised to refer to Ralph Hedlin’s
brief 1960 paper.