Edith Pretty's travel case goes on display

Edith lived at Sutton Hoo between 1926 and 1942. In 1939, she commissioned an excavation of the landscape, which eventually led to the discovery of the Great Ship Burial, believed to be the final resting place of an important Anglo-Saxon king.

The travel case was donated to the National Trust in 2019 by Edith’s granddaughter, and has since been restored.

Jack Clark, Collections and House Officer at Sutton Hoo, says: "The travel case really is something of a time capsule, revealing important details about Edith’s status and character as a woman in Edwardian England.”

The case was manufactured by Finnigans, a luxurious British trunk-maker which specialised in luggage suitable for travel by ocean liners and railways. After being founded in Manchester in 1830, it expanded, with shops in Manchester, Liverpool and London, including on the city’s famous Bond Street.

The case contains several silver objects, the majority of which are hallmarked to 1903, 23 years before Edith and her husband, Lt Colonel Frank Pretty, arrived at Sutton Hoo. It’s believed to have accompanied Edith on her travels both before and after her marriage, with visible changes to the monogram – from E.M.D for Edith May Dempster to E.M.P for Edith May Pretty - reflecting her change in name.

Jack explains: “In 1903, Edith would have been 20 and had already travelled around the world on a Thomas Cook holiday.

“We don’t know how extensively the case was used but we can deduce from her own travels, which include but are not limited to Egypt in 1904, South America in 1905 and Scandinavia in 1906, that it’s highly likely this case would have accompanied her on all of these trips, as well as many, many more.”

As a young woman, Edith had travelled extensively with her family, which was unusual for a woman at that time. Visits to Pompeii, the Egyptian Pyramids and Greece inspired her interest in archaeology and her father Robert, a wealthy industrialist, was also an amateur archaeologist himself, excavating a Cistercian abbey that adjoined their family home in Vale Royal in Cheshire.

It’s possible that the case also accompanied Edith to France in 1917, where she served as a nurse with the Red Cross during the First World War, as well as to Scotland and the south coast of England after her marriage and the birth of her son, Robert Pretty.

Among the 100 items contained within the case are a pack of playing cards, which Edith frequently wrote about using in her travel diaries, as well as a first aid kit.

“As a trained nurse, Edith was very well prepared for adventures all over the world,” says Jack. “The well-used sewing kit, with most of the contents now missing, shows Edith’s resourcefulness and the manicure set, along with various combs and brushes, is fairly typical of a woman’s belongings at the time.”

After Edith’s death in 1942, the travel case passed to her sister, Elizabeth Perkins. As part of the change in ownership, the case was modified, with a new name plate placed under the handle. Postage stamps found inside suggest that the case was still being used in 1965, more than two decades after Edith’s death.

The case was then passed down to the next generation of the Pretty family and donated to the National Trust in 2019, adding to an existing archive of Edith’s photographs and travel diaries.

Thanks to external funding, National Trust staff, volunteers and conservators have carried out several repairs to the case, including cleaning the silver items inside, waxing its exterior and repairing one of its leather straps.

Visitors can now see the case on a visit to Sutton Hoo, where it is on permanent display underneath a portrait of Edith inside Tranmer House, her former home. The case and contents have also been digitised and can be viewed online here.

Jack says: “Returning the travel case to Tranmer House is a big moment for us, and we owe our thanks to the Pretty family for their donation.

“Edith is such an important part of the Sutton Hoo story and we’re so pleased that visitors will be able to see some of her belongings up close. It really helps to give us a better idea of who she really was and how her extensive travels might have not only shaped her but also contributed to the world-famous discovery at Sutton Hoo.”