Edith Pretty

{{Infobox person

| name = Edith Pretty

| birth_name = Edith May Dempster

| birth_date = {{Birth date|df=yes|1883|08|01}}

| birth_place = Elland, Calderdale, West Riding of Yorkshire, England

| death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|1942|12|17|1883|08|01}}

| death_place = Richmond, Surrey, England

| occupation = Landowner, benefactor, magistrate

| spouse = {{marriage|Frank Pretty|1926|1934|reason=died}}

| children = Robert Dempster Pretty

| parents = {{unbulleted list| Robert Dempster | Elizabeth Dempster (née Brunton) }}

}}

Edith May Pretty (née Dempster; 1 August 1883 – 17 December 1942) was an English landowner on whose land the Sutton Hoo ship burial was discovered after she hired Basil Brown, a local excavator and amateur archaeologist, to determine whether anything lay beneath the mounds on her property.

Early life

Edith Pretty was born in Elland, Yorkshire,{{cite news|title=The woman who gave us Sutton Hoo|url=http://www.eadt.co.uk/news/features_2_483/the_woman_who_gave_us_sutton_hoo_1_78723|access-date=26 March 2014|newspaper=East Anglian Daily Times|date=21 December 2006|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140327233821/http://www.eadt.co.uk/news/features_2_483/the_woman_who_gave_us_sutton_hoo_1_78723|archive-date=27 March 2014}} to Elizabeth (née Brunton, died 1919) and Robert Dempster (born 1853).{{cite web|last1=Gerrish|first1=Oliver|title=Mrs Pretty and Sutton Hoo|url=http://archmusicman.blogspot.com/2014/11/mrs-pretty-and-sutton-hoo-little-about.html|website=ArchMusicMan|access-date=18 June 2017|date=8 November 2014|archive-date=18 September 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170918155245/http://archmusicman.blogspot.com/2014/11/mrs-pretty-and-sutton-hoo-little-about.html|url-status=live}} She had an older sister, Elizabeth. The Dempsters were wealthy industrialists who amassed their fortune from the manufacture of equipment related to the gas industry. Robert Dempster's father, also named Robert Dempster, had founded Robert Dempster and Sons in 1855 for this purpose.{{cite web|title=Robert Dempster and Sons|url=http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Robert_Dempster_and_Sons|work=Grace's Guide to British Industrial History|access-date=13 June 2017|archive-date=18 September 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170918201841/https://www.gracesguide.co.uk/Robert_Dempster_and_Sons|url-status=live}}{{cite book|title=Dempster Elland: 100 Years The record of a Century of Progress. 1855 to 1955|publisher=Dempster & Sons}}

In 1884 the family moved to Manchester, where Robert founded the engineering firm R. & J. Dempster with his brother, John.{{cite web|title=R. & J. Dempster|url=http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/R._and_J._Dempster|work=Grace's Guide to British Industrial History|access-date=13 June 2017|archive-date=25 July 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170725034613/http://www.gracesguide.co.uk/R._and_J._Dempster|url-status=live}}{{cite web|title=Biography of Edith May Pretty|url=http://artserve.anu.edu.au/raid1/student_projects/hoo2/edith.html|work=Sutton Who? Sutton Hoo – An Anglo Saxon Ship Burial|access-date=13 June 2017|archive-date=28 July 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170728075736/http://artserve.anu.edu.au/raid1/student_projects/hoo2/edith.html|url-status=live}} The family travelled extensively abroad, visiting Egypt, Greece, and Austria-Hungary. After finishing her education at Roedean School in East Sussex, Edith Pretty spent six months in Paris in 1901. Later that year, the family embarked on a world tour that included visits to the British Raj and the United States.

From 1907 to 1925, Pretty's father took a lease on Vale Royal Abbey, a country house near Whitegate, Cheshire, the family seat of Lord Delamere. Pretty grew up with an indoor staff of 25 in addition to 18 gardeners. She engaged in public and charitable works that included helping to buy land for a Christian mission.

Later life

During the First World War, Pretty served as quartermaster at the Red Cross' auxiliary hospital at Winsford, and helped to house Belgian refugees. By 1917 she was working with the French Red Cross at Vitry-le-François, and Le Bourget in France.

After her mother's death in 1919, Pretty cared for her father at Vale Royal. When he died in Cape Town during a visit to South Africa in 1925,{{cite journal|title=Obituary|journal=The Chemical Trade Journal and Chemical Engineer|year=1925|volume=76|pages=643|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=przmAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Robert+Dempster%22|access-date=12 June 2017|archive-date=8 July 2023|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230708162254/https://books.google.com/books?id=przmAAAAMAAJ&q=%22Robert+Dempster%22|url-status=live}} Pretty and her sister inherited an estate valued at more than £500,000 – about £32 million in 2022.

In 1926 she married Frank Pretty (1878–1934) of Ipswich,{{cite web |url=http://www.felixstowesociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/2010-January-NewsletterO.pdf/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220709114451/https://www.felixstowesociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/2010-January-NewsletterO.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-date=9 July 2022 |title=A tale of silver bowls |last1=Pitts |first1=Mike |date=16 June 2010 |work=Bawdsey Radar and Sutton Hoo – Visit on Wednesday 19 August 2009 |publisher=Felixstowe Society |access-date=13 June 2017 }} who had first proposed on her 18th birthday, and had corresponded with her during the war. Pretty was the son of William Tertius Pretty (1842–1916), the owner of a corset-making and drapery business in Ipswich. Frank Pretty had been a major in the Suffolk Regiment's 4th (Territorial) Battalion{{cite web|url=http://www.suffolkpainters.co.uk/index.cgi?choice=painter&pid=1647|title=PRETTY, Frank, 1878 – 1934|access-date=13 June 2017|archive-date=18 September 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170918155035/http://www.suffolkpainters.co.uk/index.cgi?choice=painter&pid=1647|url-status=live}} and had been wounded twice during the war. His participation in 1915 in the Battle of Neuve Chapelle was captured in a painting by the artist Fred Roe.{{cite journal|title=Territorial Army|journal=The London Gazette|year=1922|volume=32774|pages=8614|url=https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/32774/page/8614|access-date=14 June 2017|archive-date=24 September 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170924033223/https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/32774/page/8614|url-status=live}}{{Failed verification|date=November 2018}} After the war, Pretty continued to serve the Suffolk Regiment, obtaining the rank of lieutenant colonel and commander of the 4th BattalionFrank Pretty's father, W.T. Pretty, had also risen by 1911 to the rank of lieutenant colonel in the Suffolk Regiment, in which he raised the 6th (cyclist) Battalion. See Wickham Market, Suffolk: The Cyclist Battalion at bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0232mf7. in 1922, while also working in the family business.

Edith Pretty gave up the lease on Vale Royal after her marriage and bought the {{convert|213|ha|acre|abbr=off|adj=on}} Sutton Hoo estate, including Sutton Hoo House, along the River Deben, near Woodbridge, Suffolk. She served as a magistrate in Woodbridge, and in 1926 donated the Dempster Challenge Cup to Winsford Urban District Council, her former Red Cross posting. The Cup has been awarded annually for most years since to a plot-holder on Winsford's garden allotments.{{cite web|url=http://www.overallotments.co.uk/dempster_challenge_cup.html |title=The Dempster Challenge Cup|access-date=13 June 2017 |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20190110013735/https://overallotments.co.uk/dempster_challenge_cup.html |archive-date=10 January 2019}}{{cite news |url=http://www.winsfordguardian.co.uk/news/8174087.Cup_mystery_solved/ |title=Cup mystery solved |author=Katie Durose |newspaper=Winsford Guardian |date=19 May 2010 |access-date=16 November 2012 |archive-date=23 December 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121223100845/http://www.winsfordguardian.co.uk/news/8174087.Cup_mystery_solved/ |url-status=live }}{{cite news |url=http://www.winsfordguardian.co.uk/news/8135562.Mystery_of_community_award/ |title=Mystery of community award |author=Katie Durose |newspaper=Winsford Guardian |date=5 May 2012 |access-date=16 November 2012 |archive-date=23 December 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121223084149/http://www.winsfordguardian.co.uk/news/8135562.Mystery_of_community_award/ |url-status=live }}{{cite web |url=http://mikepitts.wordpress.com/2010/06/ |title=A tale of silver bowls |last1=Pitts |first1=Mike |date=16 June 2010 |work=Mike Pitts – Digging deeper |publisher=wordpress.com |access-date=16 November 2012 |archive-date=14 November 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121114073542/http://mikepitts.wordpress.com/2010/06/ |url-status=live }}

On 7 September 1930, aged 47, Pretty gave birth to a son, Robert Dempster Pretty. Frank Pretty died on his 56th birthday in 1934, from stomach cancer diagnosed earlier that year.

Pretty became interested in Spiritualism, visiting a faith healer named William Parish and supporting a Spiritualist church in Woodbridge.

Archaeology at Sutton Hoo

File:Sutton Hoo helmet 2016.png, 1971.]]

Pretty had become acquainted with archaeological digs early in her life through her travels. In addition, her friend Florence Sayce's Egyptologist uncle, Archibald Sayce, and her father excavatedThe actual excavation was carried out under supervision of Basil Pendleton, assisted by J. H. Cooke; see Journal of the Architectural, Archaeological, and Historic Society, 1913, vol. XIX, pp. 236, 243. a Cistercian abbey adjoining their home at Vale Royal.{{cite news|title=Edith Pretty's gift of Saxon gold in the British Museum|url=http://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/books/467668/Edith-Pretty-s-gift-of-Saxon-gold-in-the-British-Museum|access-date=13 June 2017|newspaper=Daily Express|date=30 March 2014|archive-date=15 April 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210415060526/https://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/books/467668/Edith-Pretty-s-gift-of-Saxon-gold-in-the-British-Museum|url-status=live}}{{cite book|last=Bloch|first=R Howard|title=A Needle in the Right Hand of God: The Norman Conquest of 1066 and the Making and Meaning of the Bayeux Tapestry|year=2009|publisher=Random House|isbn=978-0307497017}}

Around 18 ancient burial mounds lay on the Sutton Hoo estate, about {{convert|450|m|yd|abbr=on}} from the Pretty home (now Tranmer House, then called Sutton Hoo House).{{cite web|title=The Royal Burial Mounds at Sutton Hoo|url=https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/sutton-hoo/features/the-royal-burial-mounds-at-sutton-hoo|work=National Trust, UK|access-date=13 June 2017|archive-date=25 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210125123826/https://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/sutton-hoo/features/the-royal-burial-mounds-at-sutton-hoo|url-status=live}} At the 1937 Woodbridge Flower Fete, Pretty discussed the possibility of an excavation with Vincent B. Redstone, a member of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology, and Fellow of both the Royal Historical Society and the Society of Antiquaries.{{cite journal|last1=Weaver|first1=Michael|title=In the beginning...|journal=Saxon – the Newsletter of the Sutton Hoo Society|year=1999|volume=30|pages=1–2|url=http://suttonhoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Saxon30.pdf|access-date=14 June 2017|archive-date=6 January 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220106160004/http://suttonhoo.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Saxon30.pdf|url-status=live}}{{cite journal|title=Obituary: Mr Vincent Burrough Redstone|journal=Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archæology and Natural History|year=1946|volume=XXIV.1|pages=61|url=http://suffolkinstitute.pdfsrv.co.uk/customers/Suffolk%20Institute/2014/01/10/Volume%20XXIV%20Part%201%20(1946)_Obituary%20Mr%20Vincent%20Burrough%20Restone%20Anon_61.pdf|access-date=12 June 2017|archive-date=14 February 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210214055013/http://suffolkinstitute.pdfsrv.co.uk/customers/Suffolk%20Institute/2014/01/10/Volume%20XXIV%20Part%201%20(1946)_Obituary%20Mr%20Vincent%20Burrough%20Restone%20Anon_61.pdf|url-status=live}} Redstone and the curator of the Ipswich Corporation Museum, Guy Maynard, met Pretty in July regarding the project, and the self-taught Suffolk archaeologist Basil Brown was subsequently invited to excavate the mounds. Promising finds were made, and Brown returned in the summer of 1939 for further work on the project. He soon unearthed the remains of a large burial site, containing what was later identified as a 7th-century Saxon ship, which may have been the last resting-place of King Rædwald of East Anglia. A curator of the British Museum described the discovery as "one of the most important archaeological discoveries of all time".

The excavation was subsequently taken over by a team of professional archaeologists headed by Charles Phillips and included Cecily Margaret Guido and Stuart Piggott.{{rp|99–100}} In September 1939, a treasure trove inquest determined that the grave goods unearthed from the ship were Pretty's property. She subsequently donated the trove to the British Museum. In recognition of this, Prime Minister Winston Churchill later offered Pretty the honour of a CBE, but she declined.

Death and subsequent ownership

Pretty died on 17 December 1942 at Richmond Hospital at the age of 59, of a blood clot on the brain after suffering a stroke. She was buried in All Saints' churchyard at Sutton.{{Cite web |url=https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/21424676.sutton-hoo-80-gentlemans-daughter-unlocked-treasures/ |title=Sutton Hoo at 80: 'Gentleman's daughter' who unlocked the treasures |date=29 July 2019 |access-date=1 July 2023 |archive-date=1 July 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230701103654/https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/21424676.sutton-hoo-80-gentlemans-daughter-unlocked-treasures/ |url-status=live }} A portrait of a 56-year-old Pretty was painted by the Dutch artist Cor Visser and donated to the National Trust by David Pretty, her grandson.{{cite web|title=Edith May Dempster, Mrs Frank Pretty (1883–1942)|url=http://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/1433816|work=National Trust Collections|access-date=13 June 2017|archive-date=26 June 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170626131516/http://www.nationaltrustcollections.org.uk/object/1433816|url-status=live}} Most of her estate of £400,000 was placed in a trust for her son, Robert, who was subsequently cared for by his aunt Elizabeth. Robert went to school at Eton and afterwards went into farming. He died of cancer on 14 June 1988 at the age of 57. Sutton Hoo was used by the War Office until 1946, when it was sold. In the late 20th century the house and the Sutton Hoo burial site were bequeathed by the Tranmer family to the National Trust, which now manages the site.

Portrayals in media

Pretty was the subject of a play by Karen Forbes performed at Sutton Hoo in 2019,{{cite news|url=https://www.eadt.co.uk/what-s-on/sutton-hoo-80th-anniversary-marked-with-new-play-about-edith-pretty-at-tranmer-house-1-6179005|title=New play casts Edith Pretty as the visionary who 'saw the past' at Sutton Hoo|newspaper=East Anglian Daily Times|date=24 July 2019|access-date=20 June 2020|archive-date=25 July 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190725173755/https://www.eadt.co.uk/what-s-on/sutton-hoo-80th-anniversary-marked-with-new-play-about-edith-pretty-at-tranmer-house-1-6179005|url-status=live}} and features in the novel The Dig by John Preston, published in 2007. She is portrayed by Carey Mulligan in the film adaptation of the same name on the Netflix streaming service in 2021.{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/may/13/fiction.features2|title=There's gold in them thar Suffolk fields|newspaper=The Guardian|date=13 May 2007|access-date=20 June 2020|archive-date=22 June 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200622015501/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2007/may/13/fiction.features2|url-status=live}}