The Le Couteur Diary recorded: ‘Emily Hemery married to Mr Bentley at St Matthews Church by the Rev G Poingdestre. A very gay and pretty wedding. The little schoolgirls strewed flowers over the carpeted path to the church door. A merry breakfast party.’
They had one child Emily Frances Anne ‘Nellie’ Bentley, born in 1868 in Cheltenham. She was ‘odd’ possibly slightly mentally disabled, the cause believed to be her father’s drinking. She died in 1933.
Cheltenham
In the 1881 census the two Emilys are recorded as living in Tyrol Villa, Cheltenham, ‘a very handsome house’ with Emily senior’s sister Alice Wilder and her two daughters as visitors. They also had four servants.
In 1891 Evelyn Wilder, one of Alice’s daughters, is a visitor. Again Robert Bentley is not present, presumably travelling for his employment.
In the late 1930s Peter R B Hemery and his wife Eileen visited Aunt Min at Cheltenham while on honeymoon. Gladys Kernaghan and her mother Alexandra lived with them. After Alexandra and Nellie, the daughter, died, Minnie became ‘gaga’. Gladys ran the house. When the Second World War started it was kept from her so as not to upset her. They had a lot of WRNS personnel billeted in the house. Minnie thought they were new housemaids. She didn’t care for their uniform and deplored the lack of caps and aprons! When she noticed the wrought iron gates of the house had gone she was told they had gone for repair and the blacksmith was taking a long time bringing them back.
She died during the Second World War.
Family tree
