Obituary: Oxford student burnt in car crash campaigned for people with facial disfigurement

He founded two charities, Changing Faces and Face Equality International, devoting the last 28 years to campaigning for face equality, a term he coined and a movement he spearheaded, drawing on his own experience of severe burns following a serious car fire when he was 18.

He died on August 16 from cancer, aged 67, in Guernsey, where he lived.

James was born near Bristol and educated at Clifton College. In December 1970, having just been offered and accepted a place at Oxford University, he sustained life-changing burns to his face and body.

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Instead of a planned gap year, he spent five months in hospital, followed by a further five years of surgery and reconstruction.

Dr Partridge was at University College, Oxford, and recalls in his recently published book, Face It, his time at Oxford as being a period of learning and experimenting with how to come to terms with, accept (and eventually very positively enjoy with pride!), the enormity of his new appearance.

James Partridge

He studied philosophy, politics and economics, but perhaps the biggest study was in human interaction and relationships. He stumbled on Erving Goffmans’ book Stigma, while browsing in Blackwells basement, and this, together with gradually making new friends, gave James the germ of hope and an idea about how to manage his changed appearance. He began to discover that what he did, impacted fundamentally on how others reacted and responded to him. If he could reach out to them, it could relieve the embarrassment and awkwardness, and allow others to also reconsider and reflect on their attitudes to facial (or any) difference.

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In his book, he suggests he became something of a celebrity on the Oxford streets and pubs (particularly the Kings Arms), with his sombrero style hat, dark glasses, coats and scarves.

Graduating from Oxford, he went on to take an MsC in medical demography at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and subsequently worked in health economics at Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospitals, London.

In 1978 he married Caroline Schofield (Carrie), and after a year studying agriculture in Cirencester, they moved to Carrie’s native Guernsey, to run a farm. He later combined farming with teaching economics at the Ladies College in St Peter Port. In 1987, in the wake of the Kings Cross fire, he was asked by the publishers to write a book about his experiences of disfigurement. It led to him the founding the charity Changing Faces, which became the UK’s leading charity for anyone with facial disfigurements. Dr Partridge had a level of positivity and optimism second to none.

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He was made an Honorary Doctor of Science by the University of the West of England in 1999, and awarded an OBE in 2002. In June he published his second book Face It: Facial Disfigurement and My Fight for Facial Equality.

It is part memoir, part manual and part manifesto for change. He is survived by Carrie, their children Simon, Charlotte and Harriet, six grandchildren and his sisters Alison and Clare.