This week’s remarkable Documentary on One, The Prospector’s Son, unravels the story of an orphaned Irish boy lost in South Africa in the 1880s. Listen to it in full here.
As a child in South Africa, Rosemarie Gilchrist’s grandmother told her a story about an orphaned Irish boy, lost in Africa, who grew up in the bush, cared for by a local tribe until he was found by a man who then traced his family back to Ireland. Could this story be true? And if so, how could this happen?
The boy’s name was Cyril Barton, and he was Rosemarie’s cousin. He was born in South Africa in 1875 to Irish parents, Florence and Folliott Barton.
Rosemarie, from Belcoo, Co Fermangh, has been fascinated by this story all her life, and approached us on the Documentary on One to produce a documentary that went in search of what actually happened to Cyril.
Rosemarie Gilchrist and Leitrim Historian Padraig Cullen looking at her family tree
We started researching and recording in April 2015 and with the help of historians and genealogists in Ireland and South Africa, archival documents, historical newspapers, family papers, and shipping records, the real story started to unfold.
Cyril’s mother, née Florence Lyons Montgomery, came from an Anglo-Irish family who were landlords in Killargue, County Leitrim. She married Folliott Barton from Pettigo, County Fermanagh, who also came from a landed family.
Folliott, an engineer, set up a large scale mining enterprise in Belbulbin, County Sligo. However, things didn’t go to plan and the enterprise ended five years into a twenty-one year lease. He was then declared bankrupt, and a hurried escape to South Africa followed in search of better prospects.
The late 19th century was a time of colonial expansion in South Africa. The discovery of diamonds and gold led to expanding frontiers and large-scale immigration of people from all over the world. After a month long turbulent journey on the SS Asiatic, the Bartons disembarked in Cape Town, and travelled upcountry where Folliott hoped to find engineering work in new towns and cities where harbours, breakwaters, bridges and dams were being built.
The SS Asiatic, the ship that travelled from Southampton to Cape Town
Florence was a graphic letter writer, and her letters written to her family back in Ireland have survived, and document the birth of Cyril in Grahamstown in June 1875, along with the trials and tribulations of Florence, Folliott and Cyril and their travels through South Africa via ox-wagon. It was a day-by-day existence where they constantly struggled to make ends meet, and longed to return to Ireland.
After a number of years the letters stop.
Rosemarie had in her possession some old family documents from Ireland which give an account of what happened next to Cyril and his parents. However, we were unsure of their reliability.
It tells us that Florence died of malarial fever. After her death, eight-year-old Cyril and his father then moved onto the gold fields of the Northern Province. En route, Folliott had his possessions and wagon stolen, and was killed. The maid travelling with them grabbed the young boy, Cyril, and took him to her tribe in the mountains.
Kaapsehoop South Africa - the place where Cyril was lost in 1884
According to the family account, nothing more was heard of Cyril for many years although all enquiries were made as to what had become of him. Years afterwards, his grandmother, Mrs Barton, had a South African newspaper sent to her in which was an account of a white child having been found by a hunter in a wild tribal area far up country. She at once got into communication with the hunter and eventually Cyril was brought home to his father's people in Ireland.
These documents point to a second account from South Africa, written in 1901 by the man who claimed to have found the lost boy. These accounts give varying details of what followed.
Gleniff Valley in Sligo, where Folliott Barton once mined, and the house he built for his workers
We later find Cyril in Dublin in 1933, working as a clerk in the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General. But what happened to him before and after? What became of him as a youngster?
In 'The Prospector's Son', Rosemarie and documentary maker Sarah Blake go in search of Cyril’s story – a trail that moves from Fermanagh, Leitrim and Sligo, to the remote Highveld of the Mpumalanga region of South Africa, and back to Dublin.
Documentary on One: The Prospector’s Son broadcasts on Saturday 15th October @ 2pm, RTÉ Radio 1, with a repeat on Sunday 16th October @ 7pm, RTÉ Radio 1. Listen to it right now here.
