Page 9 - Partridge & Spencers

Partridge’s & Spencer’s Redditch Heritage

Albert & Elizabeth Partridge, Mary, Ted & Phyl (plus unknown others) on a picnic
near Worcester in 1934

Apart from their work the only main interest of the Partridges was outdoor country pursuits as
exemplified later in Albert's leisure time. With his growing prosperity Albert's interests were fishing,
shooting and following the hounds on foot. He also liked to watch county cricket at Worcester and
Horse Racing at Worcester, Stratford and Hereford . In the 1910's Albert became one of the early
car owners in the area and enjoyed driving in Worcestershire and Herefordshire. This luxury
allowed him to fly fish regularly on the Severn at Tewksbury and the Usk in Wales.

Albert's children were a robust and healthy lot and all lived into their late 80's and some into their
90's. Alberts youngest son, Arthur, who as a boy and youth worked at Boxnot Farm, Webheath
first as a farm hand and eventually becoming its owner. In those days only a youth with a tough
constitution and ambition could do that. Ted Partridge, when not at the factory, often visited the
farm at the weekends with his son helping with haymaking and hedging. During the war Arthur
kept two splendid shire horses which provided the necessary power for ploughing and threshing.
With fuel shortages they made an invaluable contribution to the War Effort. From 1943, Italian
POW’s, prisoners of war, were used on the farm being transported in daily from the Bromsgrove
area. They were required to wear distinctive brown work clothes with a yellow diamond shaped
patch on their backs and were accompanied by a military guard. Everybody worked hard
throughout the war and the early post-war period and there was little leisure time.
It would be difficult to imagine a family more different in interests from the Partridges than the
Spencers mainly because the latter, apart from business matters and sport, inclined towards
music and the arts in general. Samuel Spencer had a musical predilection and this he passed
onto his children. Unfortunately, Samuel died young when his daughter was only six and her
mother, by dint of hard work, brought her up, together with two sons, Edgar and Sidney, in
straitened circumstances; a form of genteel poverty.

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