Wanted on Voyage

This trunk belonged to Mrs C’s grandfather and is well over one hundred years old. Born around 1884, he was barely out of his teens when he answered the call to go out to Canada and work clearing the wilderness that was Saskatchewan. Based in a town called Moose Jaw, he also became a master Bricklayer and Mason whilst he was out there. But we know he regularly returned to England and this trunk would have accompanied him on those voyages as the White Star Line and London and North Western Railway stickers testify. We think it is more than likely that he intended to settle in Canada - apparently if you cleared the land and then worked it for a certain amount of time, it became yours - but the outbreak of WW1 changed all that. In 1916, although in his early thirties, he volunteered to join the Canadian Expeditionary Force and subsequently served on the Western Front through 1917 and 1918. Demobbed in 1919, we know he went back to Canada but plans obviously changed as by 1922 he was back in Chester and getting married. We are definitely going to Canada, once covid is behind us, to visit the places he lived and to try and find out what brought him back to settle in England.
The trunk itself is not in great condition, despite a light restoration a few years back. The leather straps are quite fragile, and one of the brass corner caps is missing. Not a lot we can do about the leather, other than give it some food once in a while to stop it drying out, but I have managed to remove one of the other corner caps and hope this can act as a template to make a replacement.
The study is now almost complete. Whilst we were cleaning the trunk, a man was fitting the desk that converts to a bed. It’s a big lump of furniture, but it just fits into the space we had allocated for it. One more bookshelf and a couple of decent office chairs to buy, and then that room will be complete. All in all, a productive day so far.