On Thursday 23rd March 1911, a Mrs Baldwin of Wahroonga ( northern Sydney ) took three of her children ( names and ages not known except for "Jackie" aged 3 ), to visit Mrs Jones at Mount Colah, another place about 7 kilometers away.
Jackie wandered off into "dingo country", and was not found until the following Monday morning after a large and apparently somewhat chaotic search.
This was reported in many papers both during and after the hunt. One of the more detailed accounts was in the "Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers' Advocate" on Wednesday 29 March 1911, here
http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/85995248And this story from the "Evening News" of Friday 24th March, the day after he went missing:
http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/113932753There are many other newspaper reports, a few mostly original but most of them obvious copied from what other papers said.
So who was Jackie Baldwin ?
It seems from the newspaper stories, he had both a mother and a father. He had two siblings. One of the newspaper stories apparently refers to an older brother being send on an errand, and Jackie being disgruntled that he could not go.
A few newspaper stories name the missing child as "John", including this one
http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/126775096Most newspaper stories don't name his parents. One refers to his father as Mr. J. Baldwin. Another refers to his father as John Baldwin.
http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/79999905Notably, the most local newspaper, which names many local residents and details about the search, the Cumberland Argus, doesn't mention his parents names.
A rather odd story in "The Sun" of 8th April 1911 reported on an outbreak of mental illness at Hornsby after this episode, and a public meeting held to discuss rewarding the searchers, or alternatively rewarding Jackie Baldwin.
http://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/221591598There are 8 births for people called John Baldwin in NSW between 1907 and 1909. He might have been an immigrant, or from interstate.
The closest birth registration to Wahroonga was John E Baldwin, who birth was registered at Chatswood in 1908 and whose parents names were George R and Maude.
Looking at the death registrations for John Baldwin, this 1908 birth seems to correspond in the index to the 1949 death of John Edward Baldwin, parents George Richard and Maude Elizabeth. There is an internet reference to this 1949 burial at Liverpool cemetery, which supposedly says he was 41, which would match the 1908 birth, I guess. I found that the other day, but I can't find it again now.
So that is one plausible candidate to be the missing Jackie Baldwin, I guess.
This George and Maude Baldwin seem to have had 3 other children born in 1905, 1910 and 1912, which is three as of 1911 which matches the missing child story. Except for the father being called George.
There was a John Edward Baldwin in the RAAF in WW2, who was from Queensland but who claimed to have been born in Sydney on 18th March 1908, which would be 3 on 23rd March 1911.
Any suggestions on who "Jackie" was, or what happened to him ?