The crocodile skin dressing case of Capt ‘Tommy’ Agar-Robartes who was killed in the trenches (Image: NTPL / Andreas von Einsiedel)
The beautifully made Edwardian dressing case is filled with useful objects but would be best described as slightly worn, perhaps unsurprisingly given it was taken to the trenches at the Western Front by a young British officer over a century ago.
The crocodile-skin luggage, belonging to Capt Thomas “Tommy” Agar-Robartes who bought it from Mappin and Webb in London, returned without its owner, who was killed aged 35 by a sniper while rescuing a wounded comrade from No Man’s Land on September 30, 1915. Today it still contains his belongings, including a walnut talc holder, moustache comb, spirit lamp, trench periscope, sword and silver drinking ask inside a leather case.
There is also a brown leather writing case containing a folded machine gun barrage map. The case and its contents are key in helping to tell the story of the National Trust – as Europe’s largest conservation charity celebrates its 130th anniversary tomorrow – as it is among hundreds of thousands of items preserved for the nation, some everyday, others quite literally priceless, but all an important part of our heritage.
Sgt Hopkins, who Tommy was helping when he was fatally wounded, wrote to the officer’s mother, Mary: “I wanted to thank you on behalf of your gallant son…he came for 80 to a 100 yards right across the open in broad daylight and within 200 yards of the enemy and dragged me to safety.”
Following Tommy’s death, the dressing case was packed away in the attic of the family home, Lanhydrock House. It was discovered 80 years later and can be seen today at the property in Cornwall.
Here are some other key objects that tell the Trust’s story…
Tommy Agar Robartes who died saving a comrade from No Man’s Land (Image: Dawn Todd)
News From London: Townend, Cumbria
A Trove of letters from Ben Browne to his father at Townend reveal money worries, romances, nights out and work challenges that many today might recognise.
Browne was 27 when he set off from his family’s cosy farmhouse in Troutbeck, Cumbria, in 1719 on horseback to make the 300-mile journey to London and start his training to go from being a clerk to a lawyer.
From the moment he arrived, he began writing letters home to his father, around 65 of which survive. They are full of detail and paint a vivid picture of a young country man discovering the pleasures – and anxieties – of the big city. His letters home frequently requested money as he began to feel the pinch in the expensive city.
He asked for help paying his rent and to buy stockings, breeches, wigs and other items necessary to his new life. Despite these money worries, he enjoyed a lively social life and occasions eating and drinking, especially around Fleet Street.
In one letter, young Ben even springs a considerable surprise on his father when he announces he has married the maid of his employer. Today the missives are on display at Townend, telling just some of the property’s fascinating tales about the early 18th century.
The rare handwritten letters from Ben Browne to his father (Image: National Trust)
A book that saved a king: Moseley Old Hall, Staffordshire
This prayer book (or missal) once belonged to a Catholic priest – still showing drops of wax from the candles used to read it – and is believed to have been used to convert Charles II to Catholicism on his deathbed.
The Missale Romanum bears the signature of Father John Huddleston, chaplain at Moseley Old Hall, where Charles II sought refuge after narrowly escaping Oliver Cromwell’s troops in the Battle ofWorcester in 1651.
A Benedictine priest, Huddleston dressed as a servant in the household of the Catholic Whitgreave family, who had stayed loyal to the Royalist cause following the execution of Charles I. After his defeat to the Roundheads at Worcester, Charles fled to Boscobel House in Shropshire, where he hid in an oak tree, before arriving at Moseley Old Hall the next night.
Huddleston helped Charles to find refuge in a priest hole. After nine years of exile, the monarchy was restored in 1660 and Charles made Huddleston chaplain to his Catholic mother and later to his Catholic Portuguese wife, Catherine of Braganza. And he summoned Father Huddleston to his bedside in London in 1685,as he lay dying. Huddleston heard the king’s confession, administered the Eucharist and received him into the Catholic Church.
The Duke of York is believed to have said that Huddleston saved the king’s life twice – first his body, then his soul.
The Huddleston Missal, said to have saved Charles II’s soul (Image: National Trust / James Dobs)
A lonely wife: Nostell, West Yorkshire
The voices of women have often been relegated to the background of history as their wealthy and prominent husbands took centre stage. But at Nostell, some of the personal possessions that meant so much to a young Swiss wife, Sabine Winn, are on display and reveal much of her life.
She was lady of the grand house Nostell from 1765 until her death in 1798, having met Sir Rowland Winn while he was on his Grand Tour. They wed, despite his family’s misgivings about a “foreigner” running an English house, and moved to Yorkshire, where her troubles began.
In the 18th century, country houses were public displays of wealth, taste and status which women were expected to manage impeccably. It seems Sabine struggled under the pressure. She retreated to her Dressing Room, where she could surround herself with prized belongings, and write countless letters to Rowland in London at her Thomas Chippendale “secretary” (desk and bookcase).
In one from 1769, she wrote: “I live only for you, and yet I am always without you.” And another: “I shall no longer act tactfully if you do not come back this week…In the name of God return to your senses and show you have feelings of your own….”
Sabine Winn’s Chippendale ‘secretary’, preserved at Nostell, West Yorkshire (Image: National Trust)
Granny’s cabinet: Snowshill Manor, Gloucestershire
The rooms at Snowshill Manor are full of countless charming objects collected by architect and artist Charles Wade. But one, in particular, was close to Charles’s heart – a black and gold lacquer cabinet which had once belonged to his grandmother. “This cabinet made in Canton – 1700-1710 – was given to my grandmother when she was 18 by her Father [Augustine Bulwer] who bought it at Norwich,” he once recalled. As a child, his “greatest joy” was to be allowed to look inside the 18th century cabinet on Sundays – and as the doors opened came the scent of camphor.Wade would wonder at its secret drawers and family treasures: a wax angel with golden wings, musical boxes, tiny model rowing boats and even his great, great grandfather’s silver spectacles. Later in life, he wrote in his notebook Days Far Away: “Now, after all the years, for me this cabinet has lost none of its enchantment. “It still weaves spells and is my favourite treasure of all at Snowshill.”
The black lacquer cabinet at Snowshill Manor, Gloucs (Image: National Trust)
A riveting find: Sutton Hoo, Suffolk
A small piece of iron may not immediately point to one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of the 20th century. But when digging started at Sutton Hoo in 1939, the emergence of iron rivets indicated something exciting.
Archaeologist Basil Brown had been appointed by Edith Pretty to investigate a series of strange mounds on her land. Brown was assisted by a small team and he recalled that John Jacobs, the gardener, found a small bit of iron.
Brown wrote: “I immediately stopped the work and carefully explored the area with a small trowel and uncovered five rivets in position.” The ghost of a ship – including the fragile outline of the curving wood in the sand, showing where all the planks, ribs and even some tholes for oars – was then found.
Brown had uncovered the Anglo-Saxon burial ship for a king and his treasures, which made global headlines.
Many finds went to the British Museum. But among those on display at Sutton Hoo, is one of those original rivets from the ship’s stem – a powerful reminder of a discovery that continues to fire the imagination.
Rivet on display at Tranmer House, Sutton Hoo, Suffolk (Image: NTI / Phil Morley)
Tunic that saved a life: The Argory, Co Armagh
A red flannel tunic in The Argory’s collection belonged to young Cornet Ralph McGeough Bond Selton who, at 20, survived the sinking of HMS Birkenhead on February 26, 1852.
It had been en route to fight against the Xhosa people of Southern Africa during colonial rule when it struck a rock in Simon’s Bay near Cape Town. He wrote to his father that he was awoken “by a tremendous shock nearly throwing me out of my berth on which I put on some of my clothes & went on deck where I found all in confusion; the ship was on a reef of rocks & no chance of getting her off”. Women and children were saved on lifeboats but as the last one pulled away and the ship began to break up, it was still crowded with cavalry troops and horses.
Ralph recalled “every man was for himself, this was at 2 in the morning only 20 minutes from the time she struck till she went down”. He had a life preserver but maintained his red flannel tunic and trousers helped him survive, proving less attractive to sharks than the bare legs of his companions, before his three-hour swim to shore.
The red jacket Cornet Ralph McGeough Bond Selton believed saved him from sharks (Image: National Trust)
A precious heirloom: Calke Abbey, Derbyshire
The delicate gold and turquoise brooch at Calke Abbey was almost lost by its last owner. It was handed down to Mary Adeline Crewe in the middle of the 19th century, having belonged first to her grandfather, Sir Henry.
The next to wear it was probably her father Sir George, who is seen in a portrait with what looks like the brooch pinned elegantly to his cravat. He gave it to Mary when she was a small child. P
erhaps due to the fact her father died only a few years later, she was wary of losing it, and panic set in when, soon after aged around 14,“it dropped off on the beach at Filey. I was in despair but a sailor found it embedded in stones and sand”.
It was then she had a safety chain put on. Mary Adeline lived a long life, but did not have any children of her own, passing away in her mid-nineties.
The delicate Victorian gold circlet brooch that was nearly lost on a beach (Image: Leah Band)
Mavis’s doll: The Workhouse and Infirmary, Nottinghamshire
The Workhouse at Southwell, its infirmary and separate “fever cottages” played a key part in public health – aimed at improving sanitation and stopping the spread of contagious diseases.
In the late 1920s, a small girl called Mavis was admitted to the fever cottages – built to allow isolation of contagious patients – suffering from diphtheria, a feared and often fatal disease of the airways. Mavis’s nurse wrote regularly to her parents – unable to visit because of the risk of contagion – to update them on her condition.
The letters show the nurse was fond of her patient, describing her as a “topping babe” and “a dear little girlie”. In one letter, she writes: “She is taking a fair amount of nourishment, sleeping well and appears to be very comfy. Don’t think she is fretting, she isn’t, she’s as good as gold. She shall have my very best attention.”
Happily, Mavis recovered and was sent home. Knowing the child’s toys had been destroyed in case they were infected, the nurse sent Mavis a new doll. She wrote: “Little Mavis will be quite settled by now I expect…Bless her wee heart, I shall miss her. I wonder will I ever see her again.”
The doll and letters were donated by Mavis’s daughters in 2015, after an appeal for details about the site’s history.
Mavis’ doll from The Workhouse and Infirmary in Southwell, Notts (Image: National Trust)
A doomed affair: Upton House / Wightwick Manor
Behind one of the greatest Pre-Raphaelite paintings lies a story as emotionally charged and beautiful as its subject matter.
Love Among the Ruins, by Sir Edward Burne-Jones, features two richly-dressed lovers seated among the decaying ruins of a building overgrown with roses. Burne-Jones’ original watercolour of the scene was damaged in Paris in 1893 and such was its importance to him that he repainted it again in oil shortly before he died.
The painting’s subject tells of a devastating time in the artist’s own life, after the break-up of his tempestuous adulterous relationship with the Greek artist, sculptor and model Maria Zambaco, who had become his muse.
They had begun a passionate affair after Maria’s mother commissioned Burne-Jones to paint her daughter’s portrait, but he ended it, realising he could never leave his wife and children.
On the reverse of the painting, a handwritten note by the artist says he began the replica after the watercolour was destroyed and gives instructions on how his work should be cared for. The painting is temporarily on display at Upton House and Gardens in Warwickshire, before returning to Wightwick Manor near Wolverhampton.
Love Among the Ruins by Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones carries a hidden meaning (Image: NTPL Paul Raeside)