Press Backgrounder: Edward Alexander Partridge (1861-1931)

Sintaluta farmer E.A. Partridge was a leader in early-20^th-century Saskatchewan, when frustrated farmers banded together to defend their interests in the booming wheat economy. A key figure in the agrarian protest movement, in 1902, Partridge helped establish the Territorial Grain Growers’ Association, the first agricultural protest organization. He was also involved in the creation of the first cooperative grain marketing company, the Grain Growers’ Grain Company in 1905-06, and in 1908 was the founding editor of the influential Grain Growers’ Guide.Through his writings and organizational work, this political visionary advocated agrarian political action, cooperative grain marketing, wheat pools, and collaboration between farmers and factory workers.

Born in 1861 in Canada West (now Ontario), Partridge worked as a teacher before moving west with his brother and settling on a homestead in Sintaluta, North-West Territories (now Saskatchewan) in 1883. There, Partridge became a vocal leader in the growing farm movement. Travelling to Winnipeg to investigate the operations of the Winnipeg Grain Exchange, he was shocked by a system in which grain dealers engaged in speculation. He returned home to help found the Grain Growers’ Grain Company, and served as its first president. Partridge also helped found the Grain Growers’ Guide, which went on to become an influential prairie journal, although he resigned as editor after only one issue over a conflict regarding his efforts to reach out to urban labourers as well as farmers. He continued to write for the Grain Growers’ Guide, and used it to promote his “Partridge Plan,” which called for the creation of wheat pools. In 1909 he helped found the first national farmers’ organization in Canada, the Dominion Council of Agriculture. Although Partridge achieved the status of respected elder statesman within the farm movement, his influence declined during the First World War years when he suffered a number of personal and business losses. He re-emerged after the war to promote the ideal of a Canadian Wheat Pool, which became a reality in 1935. Partridge also took an interest in the formation of the Farmers’ Union of Canada, joined the Progressive Party, and helped organize the Saskatchewan Co-operative Wheat Producers Limited, the latter becoming the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool. Partridge articulated his ideas through the Grain Growers’ Guide, and in 1925 he published A War on Poverty , a book that advocated a utopian society based on cooperation. By the 1930s, the push for reform in the west found expression in the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, which embraced many of Partridge’s ideas.