Teddy Partridge

Jean Longstaff has submitted the following:-

Edward Partidge was born in Wingate on October 1887 the youngest of the seven children, John, Mary, Thomas, Elizabeth. Maria and William, of Suffolk born miner Thomas Partridge and his wife Elizabeth (nee Race), who had married in Wingate in 1873. Four months after Edward’s birth his father, a pit deputy, was killed in a stone fall at Wingate Grange Colliery. Money still had to be found so by 1901 all four boys were working underground in the pit, including 14 year old Teddy who was a trapper boy.

In 1909 Teddy’s older sister Elizabeth emigrated to Canada with her husband and Teddy followed her in March 1911, making for Saskatchewan according to the ship’s manifest. There is no trace of him until he enlisted in the Canadian Expeditionary Force at Vernon Camp, British Columbia on 28th August 1915, when he became Private 442533 of the 54th (Kootenay) Battalion, giving his occupation as a meat cutter and naming his mother in Wingate as his next of kin.

The battalion, with a strength of 36 officers and 1111 other ranks embarked for England on 22nd November 1915 on HMT Saxonia, sailing from Halifax to Plymouth, and then travelling by train to Liphook, Hampshire followed by a march to nearby Bramshott Camp, where they trained for the next 8½ months. In June 1916 Teddy was sent on a ten day course on trench mortars at Pirbright, Surrey, and at the end of his course was transferred to “B” Company, 11th Brigade Trench Mortar Company, a transfer that was rescinded when he proceeded overseas with the 54th Battalion, travelling from Southampton to Havre, arriving in France on 13th August 1916.

The Battalion travelled by train to the Ypres Salient and had two days of instructional duty in the front line trenches, and a few days later were made responsible to hold this same front line. It was here in the trenches south east of St Eloi that Private Teddy Partridge was killed in action on 28th August 1916.

His name does not appear on any local war memorial.

In Canada he is remembered on their Virtual War Memorial and in their Book of Remembrance

Canadian Book of Remembrance
Canadian Virtual Memorial
The CWGC entry for Private Partridge