A postcard has been added to the Bentworth page, in the local villages A-K section of the website.
The Sun Inn, Bentworth c1910
At the time of the image the licensee would have been Joseph Eley or his wife Cecil Eley nee Munday. They took on the Sun Inn, on the 1st of June 1909, their son Archibald was born a few months later, on the 7th September.
The family were well known in the area, Joseph originally from London appears to have lived with his older brother Francis and his family in Beech, arriving sometime after 1901, he was a keen cricketer and played for the Beech Cricket Team. Cecil Munday was born in Medstead, she lived with her family at Upper Soldridge farm, until her father passed away in 1899. By 1901 she was living in Alton with the Census recording her and her mother Emma, at 20 Bow Street. At some point Joseph and Cecil met, later to marry at All Saints Church in Alton on the 21st December 1903.
Joseph tragically died in a bicycle accident on the 25th February 1911. Needing to visit Alton after closing time he found the brakes on his bicycle were faulty, unable it appears to carry out a repair or borrow another bicycle, he set off down Sun Hill at 10.20pm only to be found an hour later at the sharp corner at the bottom of the hill. A doctor was sent for, it was later determined that he fell from his bicycle fracturing his skull, which would have led to an instantaneous death.
The licence of the Sun was transferred to his widow Cecil a month or so afterwards, she continued to run the Sun until March 1915, when it was transferred to William Burton, who ran the Sun until at least 1939.
Turning to the postcard itself, Emma Munday (Cecil’s older sister) wrote a message on the back to her sister Mabel wishing her a Merry Christmas & Bright New Year adding a date of the 22nd December 1912. It was not posted, perhaps it was hand delivered or given to Mabel as a memento?
There are 4 people in the image, I presume the lady in black standing is Cecil Eley, with her son Archibald standing in front of her, with her older sister Emma Munday sitting down, could the 4th person be Mabel. Emma was approx. 24 years older than Cecil, it would have been easy to have confused them as mother and daughter!