Edith Pretty

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 Dempster was born in Elland, Yorkshire, to Elizabeth (née Brunton, died 1919) 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.

In 1884 the family moved to Manchester, where Robert founded the engineering firm R. & J. Dempster with his brother, John. The family travelled extensively abroad, visiting Egypt, Greece, and Austria-Hungary. After finishing her education at Roedean School in East Sussex, Edith Dempster spent six months in Paris in 1901. Later that year, the family embarked on a world tour that included visits to British India and the United States. Edith and her sister Elizabeth inherited an estate valued at more than £500,000 – about £39 million in 2025.

In 1926 Edith Dempster married Frank Pretty (1878–1934), of Ipswich, who had first proposed to her on her 18th birthday, and had corresponded with her during the war. Frank Pretty was the son of William Tertius Pretty (1842–1916), the owner of a corset-making and drapery business in Ipswich. and was 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. After the war, Frank Pretty continued to serve the Suffolk Regiment, obtaining the rank of lieutenant colonel and commander of the 4th Battalion in 1922,

On 7 September 1930, aged 47, Edith Dempster Pretty gave birth to a son, Robert Dempster Pretty. Four years later Frank Pretty died on his 56th birthday in 1934, from stomach cancer diagnosed earlier that year. a Cistercian abbey adjoining their home at Vale Royal. Redstone and the curator of the Ipswich Corporation Museum, Guy Maynard, met Edith Dempster Pretty in July regarding the project, and the self-taught Suffolk archaeologist Basil Brown was subsequently invited to excavate the mounds. 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. Most of her estate of £400,000 was placed in a trust for her son, Robert, who was subsequently cared for by his mother’s sister, Elizabeth. Robert went to school at Eton and afterwards went into farming. He died of stomach cancer (as did his father) on 14 June 1988 at the age of 57. 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, released on the Netflix streaming service in 2021.