Thank you lizzie.
I've since found out that his spinster sister hilda lived at the same address untill her death in 1977.
On his fathers funeral obituary in the local paper all the living children are there with the exception of one son.
All the daughters apart from hilda married and not to anyone with the name Bennett as far as I can see.
On his father obituary there are people with the name of Bennett but are friends and not close relations.
In the area I'm looking at there are so many elphicks and bennetts its difficult to think they are not intertwined at some point.
Thank you for your help x
Have you tried tracing the siblings of Harold to see if a Bennett appears somewhere? A first cousin of my mother's died intestate in 1970. He was an only child, never married and his parents had predeceased him. My grandmother applied for letters of administration because she was his aunt.
See here for order of next of kin
https://www.gov.uk/inherits-someone-dies-without-will
Maybe you can work out who would be the person to apply for the LOA
