Cyril Scoular

A child named Cyril Scoular was brought from Oamaru by Mrs Dean about five years ago. He remained at the Larches about three years. One day in April, about two years ago, when all the grown-up people about the house were absent, he disappeared, and Mrs Dean said he had been taken away in a buggy by a lady from Gore... However, Margaret maintained that she had found no buggy tracks leading to the house and that no one else had seen a visitor arrive that day.157 She was later told by Minnie that Cyril had 'gone to Sydney', Australia, and was shown a photograph of him there with his new family. In a particularly damning statement, Margaret told the inquest jury that she did not believe that the child in the photograph was Cyril. Source: http://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10289/7349/th....

A letter from Cyril's mother, Ellen Scoular, advising Minnie of the death of Cyril's father, was produced at the inquest. Sent two years after Cyril's disappearance, it nevertheless contained language that suggested Ellen believed her child to be living with the Deans. In a postscript, Ellen wrote: 'P.S.- Trusting the wee fellow is a good boy' (Hood, p. 157). Cyril was officially declared dead by Chief Justice Robert Stout in 1914 when an application to release legacies left to him in his father's estate was brought before the Supreme Court. The application was denied, with Stout declaring that the child had died before the will was made; 'no doubt' he said 'murdered by Dean' ('Echoes from a Baby Farm', Wanganui Chronicle, 8 July 1914, p. 5) Source: http://researchcommons.waikato.ac.nz/bitstream/handle/10289/7349/th....

Reference: http://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/cgi-bin/paperspast?a=d&d=OAM189506...