William Charles (Bill) Partridge (1893–1984) Horticulturist, spiritualist, Medium, and minister, and a leading figure in Canadian Spiritualism.
William Charles Partridge was born on May 11, 1893, in Bradninch, Devonshire, England, where he spent his youth. He was raised in the Church of England (Anglican) and as a youth was religious. He sang in the choir until the age of 15 when his schooling ended and he moved to Exeter to pursue horticulture.
In 1913, Partridge emigrated to Pickering, Ontario, Canada, where he worked as a gardener for the aristocracy. In March 1916, he joined the Canadian Army and spent 20 months fighting in World War I in France and Belgium. He married Irish-born Annie Elizabeth Galway (1889–1977), whom he had met while in Canada.
Wounded in the war and suffering from dysentery, Partridge was sent to England to recuperate for five months and was then returned to fight again in Europe. He later wrote that he felt the spirit world looked after him there.
After the war, the Partridges returned to the family estate, “The Willows,” at Bradninch, Devonshire, where he ran the orchard and flower gardens for the gentry. He and Annie had four children.
The Willows, a brick house built by Partridge’s father, was haunted. At the age of about 12, Partridge had first heard spirit footsteps coming up the stairs with a heavy tread on one foot.In 1919, he experienced knocks or spirit Rappings at the front and back doors and elsewhere. The footsteps and rappings were unceasing for considerable periods of time.
One day, a spiritualist medium from Manchester came to The Willows to buy apples. Sensing that something was amiss in the home, he told Partridge to ask his father about his first wife. From that point, the family was convinced that the first wife Mary Louisa (Granger) Partridge (1841–1891) was the troubled spirit responsible for the phenomena. She had suffered from Milk Leg or White Leg, an ailment of women post-childbirth, that caused her to walk with a heavy leg. She made her presence known by walking the stairs and halls of the house at night with her pronounced limp. On a second visit, the medium said that there was friction within the household, advising that Bill Partridge and family should get another home and predicting that in six months’ time they would be back in Canada. The prediction was accurate.
Intrigued by spiritualism, Partridge attended a development class in Exeter until he and his family departed for Canada in 1925. Spiritualism became his avocation and a lifetime of study, personal development, and teaching followed. Annie also was drawn to spiritualism and showed natural psychic ability.
The Partridges returned to Pickering and, around 1928, moved to North Toronto, where Bill managed the estate of one of Toronto’s largest stockbrokers. Following the stock market crash, Partridge was unemployed and the family experienced difficult times.
Partridge received significant spirit messages that convinced him of Survival After Death. Reverend Martha Stier McGuire, one of the most outstanding mediums in Canada, gave Partridge a message about gold coins that his father had hidden, information which he was convinced could only have come from the surviving spirit of his father. On another occasion, a medium named Mrs. MacNamee told him that he had an Uncle Sam in spirit life, but that strangely the only information she could get was “Billy, Sam is here.” Those were the Afterlife CODES that Partridge and his uncle had agreed upon for test purposes in Exeter after World War I. To Partridge, it was “convincing proof that there is no death.”
In 1928, Partridge visited the cottage of the John and Margaret Fox family (see Fox Sisters). At the time, there were daily Demonstrations of knocks, through the mediumship of Florence Cotterell. Pilgrims could get answers to questions simply by sending out mental thoughts.
McGuire helped Partridge to develop his own mediumistic ability. Once while he was entranced, an Indian spirit Control threw him to the floor. When he came to, he was told he had received the power to heal. He started healing the sick, and he developed Clairvoyance, Clairaudience, and Psychometry skills.
In the early years of his mediumship, Partridge acquired the ability to produce “knocks” and tried his hand at Table-Tilting. Working with Charles A. Nixon, one of the founders of the NATIONAL SPIRitualIST ASSOCIATION OF CANADA, the two men would put their fingers on a table and it would carry them the length of the spiritualist church. During those years, Partridge witnessed and was impressed by the mediumship of the American ARTHUR AUGUST FORD who was a visitor to Britten Memorial Church.
Partridge consistently received spirit messages that provided information that only the deceased person and recipient knew about. On the 100th anniversary of the birth of spiritualism in March 1948, he participated in the Demonstrations of mediumship in the Corinthian Hall at Rochester, New York, where the Fox sisters had held their first public meeting. Eventually, however, he became more interested in the philosophy of the spiritualist religion than in proving survival after death, which he accepted as fact.
In 1938, Partridge helped found The Springdale Park Spiritual Association of Ontario, a Spiritualist Camp on the Muskoka River near Bracebridge, Ontario, modelled after Lily Dale Assembly in New York. On March 22, 1942, Partridge was ordained as pastor of Springdale Park Spiritual Association (SPSA), and for many years served as pastor of Springdale Church.
Partridge studied at the Spiritualists National Union (SNU) college at Stansted, England, and spoke at numerous spiritualist churches in Britain. He was associated with, and president of, both national bodies, the National Spiritualists Alliance of Canada and SNU of Canada.
With Reverend Beatrice Gaulton Bishop and others, Partridge succeeded in uniting the two groups, eventually renamed the Spiritualist Church of Canada (SCC). Partridge helped to establish education and accreditation for spiritualist workers and marriage rights for its ministers within Ontario.
In 1976, Annie’s health failed, and the Partridges moved to Vancouver, British Columbia, to live near family. Annie died on May 12, 1977. Partridge died on September 4, 1984, at age 91.
SEE ALSO:
FURTHER READING:
- Denniss, Gary. The Story of Springdale Park. Bracebridge, Ontario: Springdale Park Spiritual Association, 1998.
- “Canada’s Spiritualists Unite!” Psychic News, no. 1328 (November 16, 1957), pp. 1, 8. “Saluting Them!” International Spiritualist News Review, January 1965.
SOURCE:
The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits– Written by Rosemary Ellen Guiley – September 1, 2007