Edward Alexander Partridge (5 November 1861 – 3 August 1931) was a Canadian teacher, farmer, agrarian radical, businessman and author.

His "Partridge Plan" was a broad and visionary proposal for addressing a wide range of farmers' issues, eliminating many abuses caused by the near-monopoly of grain elevator companies, and resulted in important reforms by the provincial governments.

[1] Edward Alexander Partridge was born on 5 November 1861 near Crown Hill, Springwater then in Canada West.

Partridge's mother died while he was an infant, and he lived with his grandparents for a period while he attended public school.

[5] Partridge began to push the TGGA members to demand tighter control of the grading system and inspection of elevators.

He said that the elevator companies, millers and exporters rigged the grain prices so they were low during the fall harvest period, when farmers had to sell to obtain cash to pay their debts.

It was expelled for paying patronage dividends to its member clients, then reinstated when the Manitoba Grain Growers' Association MGGA exerted pressure on the government of Rodmond Roblin.

[11] Partridge felt that the press had given unfair treatment of the struggle to get the GGGC off the ground, and helped organize a farmers' publication.

The Guide represented the interests of the MGGA and its sister organizations the Saskatchewan Grain Growers' Association (SGGA) and the United Farmers of Alberta (UFA).

[9] Soon after being launched, the Guide published the "Partridge Plan", in which he again proposed that grain elevators should be owned by the public, a position already accepted by the SGGA.

All these abuses derived from the effective monopoly of the large grain handlers, and could be eliminated by the government taking over the local elevators.

Partridge also proposed that the government build increased storage facilities so that farmers were not forced to sell as soon as the harvest was over, but could wait until prices rose in the spring or summer.

[18] The grading system unduly emphasized color and weight of the kernel rather than the milled value, and encouraged mixing at the terminal elevators.

The far-reaching reform proposals of the Partridge Plan thus addressed a wide range of farmer's concerns.

In 1919 Partridge resumed public activity when he opposed the candidacy of William Richard Motherwell, who was running for the Liberals in a federal by-election in Assiniboia.

[2] Partridge came to believe that cooperation between farmers was not enough to solve the problems of wasteful competition and the accumulation of private wealth.

[2] Partridge decried government-protected capitalists such as Gordon McGregor and Wallace Campbell who continued "to prey upon that part of the poor bedevilled Canadian public who can't escape to the United States".

In 1926 Partridge moved to a room in a boarding house in Victoria, British Columbia to be near his youngest daughter.

With no money apart from the small, monthly $75.00 UGG stipend, in poor health, and despairing[tone] of achieving further reforms,[citation needed] Partridge committed suicide on 3 August 1931.