WEBVTT - Tenfold More Wicked - The Wolf Among Us: Two Sarahs 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:05.359 This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised. 0:00:17.120 --> 0:00:18.599 There's some hidden back there. 0:00:19.720 --> 0:00:23.279 Yeah, it always happens to me. 0:00:25.920 --> 0:00:26.400 It changed. 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:34.600 I'm with Gerald and Hilary Fox and their granddaughter Meg 0:00:34.760 --> 0:00:38.400 Edwards in Birkhamsted, England. We're exploring the grounds of the 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:42.120 Quaker meetinghouse, where John Tall would meet with fellow Quakers 0:00:42.200 --> 0:00:45.960 later in his life. The small cemetery there is well kept, 0:00:46.120 --> 0:00:48.199 but we're hoping to look at the little lawn in 0:00:48.240 --> 0:00:52.360 the back for a small village. Berkhamsted has a lot 0:00:52.400 --> 0:00:55.080 of construction today, so it's hard to talk. 0:00:56.040 --> 0:00:57.560 So I wonder if this is all original? 0:00:59.200 --> 0:01:02.560 My ELPs, what is it? 0:01:03.240 --> 0:01:06.600 The building was made in nineteen eighteen. 0:01:08.480 --> 0:01:10.440 I think there was there was a shadow of something. 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:14.600 Maybe the eighth look like a yeah, yeah. 0:01:14.640 --> 0:01:17.319 I just obstruct by how modest this is compared to 0:01:18.120 --> 0:01:19.480 the church. I mean, it's amazing. 0:01:19.720 --> 0:01:22.240 That is the thing that click is very, very. 0:01:22.160 --> 0:01:26.760 Simpl This meeting house and its property is so important 0:01:26.880 --> 0:01:30.800 because John Taull would stroll these same grounds more than 0:01:30.880 --> 0:01:35.480 one hundred and seventy years earlier. No amount of research 0:01:35.560 --> 0:01:39.760 in an archive can replace that. But I can't always 0:01:39.800 --> 0:01:40.800 control the environment. 0:01:42.319 --> 0:01:42.600 See what. 0:01:43.680 --> 0:01:46.000 It was too noisy, so I tried to move to 0:01:46.120 --> 0:01:49.520 another location further in the back by the bushes. But 0:01:49.600 --> 0:01:53.040 no luck. None of this is working out. And perhaps 0:01:53.160 --> 0:01:55.800 I've received an omen because I got my first injury 0:01:55.840 --> 0:01:56.440 on the job. 0:01:57.800 --> 0:01:58.640 Oh I grabbed a. 0:01:58.560 --> 0:02:03.040 Bush over there and it oh, yeah, it's okay. 0:02:03.080 --> 0:02:04.920 I was trying to move for this. 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:07.559 It's okay. 0:02:07.720 --> 0:02:08.359 It's stings. 0:02:08.440 --> 0:02:09.240 See it's oh. 0:02:09.320 --> 0:02:11.320 I just for something in there, see it? 0:02:12.639 --> 0:02:12.839 Yeah? 0:02:13.880 --> 0:02:19.600 Good tho, Yes, there's a there. 0:02:20.440 --> 0:02:21.959 You need tweezes to get it out. 0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:24.680 I have tweezers at home, but you both sweet, thank you. 0:02:26.160 --> 0:02:29.359 After I recovered from the thorn, I left the meetinghouse 0:02:29.440 --> 0:02:32.640 with the Foxes and Meg. Now we need to go 0:02:32.760 --> 0:02:38.080 back in time and actually leave the country. John Taull's 0:02:38.120 --> 0:02:45.400 story continues in Australia in eighteen twenty three. By then, 0:02:45.720 --> 0:02:50.200 John Tall, the convicted forger and suspected thief, had been 0:02:50.240 --> 0:02:53.519 building a lovely life in a penal colony in Sydney 0:02:53.760 --> 0:02:58.040 for almost a decade. He had established the first Quaker 0:02:58.040 --> 0:03:00.400 house in the country. He sat on the board of 0:03:00.440 --> 0:03:04.239 a bank. His pharmacies and various real estate deals led 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:08.640 to a lucrative importing exporting business, and Tall's family lived 0:03:08.680 --> 0:03:12.160 in a lovely home. That year he had sent for 0:03:12.200 --> 0:03:15.000 his wife Mary and his two sons, John and William. 0:03:15.560 --> 0:03:18.280 Little is known about the young men, but Tall's great 0:03:18.320 --> 0:03:21.840 great granddaughter, Hilary Fox, has done a bit of research 0:03:22.000 --> 0:03:23.600 on their life in Australia. 0:03:24.639 --> 0:03:29.000 The boys were educated at Doctor Halleran Sydney Grammar School. 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:32.680 In eighteen twenty four, William Henry won a book prize 0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:35.600 and John Downing a silver medal for Latin. 0:03:36.440 --> 0:03:40.440 Five years later, the country's census gave details about John 0:03:40.480 --> 0:03:43.560 Tall's pharmacy business and his other son, John Junior. 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:47.960 In eighteen twenty eight, Ambrose Fostport the business. By the 0:03:48.040 --> 0:03:52.280 time of that year's sinceus retired apothecary, John Tull was 0:03:52.320 --> 0:03:56.320 living in Castlereah Street with his wife, and the seventeen 0:03:56.400 --> 0:04:00.000 year old youngest son, William John Junior, was in England 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:03.720 and studying in medicine. That that was the only reference 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:06.400 I've ever seen for those children. 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:10.320 Clearly, both of the younger Tall men were bright and 0:04:10.400 --> 0:04:13.120 their father had expected much of them. That's what their 0:04:13.240 --> 0:04:18.400 education tells us. Tall's fourteen year prison sentence expired in 0:04:18.480 --> 0:04:22.080 eighteen twenty eight and author Carol Baxter says he could 0:04:22.120 --> 0:04:26.599 have taken the family back to England immediately. I asked, Carol, 0:04:26.640 --> 0:04:29.640 when most people who were convicted of crimes were allowed 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:32.640 to leave the penal colony? Was it when they served 0:04:32.680 --> 0:04:33.440 out their sentence. 0:04:34.560 --> 0:04:38.360 They had different ways of ending a sentence. Your sentence 0:04:38.440 --> 0:04:42.240 could be time expired, in which case with a seven 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:45.440 year or a fourteen year sentence. Once the sentence expired, 0:04:45.520 --> 0:04:48.080 yes you were free to do whatever you wanted, but 0:04:48.360 --> 0:04:50.680 you would have to pay your passage back to the UK. 0:04:50.760 --> 0:04:52.479 And most of them didn't have enough money to pay 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:55.000 their passage, so essentially it was a life sentence. 0:04:55.600 --> 0:04:58.560 But Tall did have the money to leave, and yet 0:04:58.800 --> 0:05:02.160 he stayed for another ten years because he was so 0:05:02.200 --> 0:05:06.080 successful in Australia. But by eighteen thirty eight it was 0:05:06.160 --> 0:05:10.160 time to return to England. Finally, the Talls packed up 0:05:10.160 --> 0:05:11.640 their belongings. 0:05:12.640 --> 0:05:16.400 And John and his family actually went back to the UK. 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:23.000 For the return trip. The Tolls traveled aboard a much 0:05:23.120 --> 0:05:25.599 nicer ship than the one John Tall had taken to 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:30.680 Australia two decades before. John Tall was returning to England 0:05:30.880 --> 0:05:38.120 wealthier than before, much wealthier and more confident, but still sneaky. 0:05:39.880 --> 0:05:43.640 He had become a significant figure in Quakerism in Australia 0:05:43.880 --> 0:05:46.800 after he had been cast out by the Quakers in England. 0:05:48.720 --> 0:05:51.840 So now the question was would he return to the 0:05:51.920 --> 0:05:53.400 Quakers when he got home. 0:05:54.560 --> 0:05:58.279 He'd really only just been accepted when he was booted out. 0:05:58.520 --> 0:06:01.640 The astonishing thing, though, is after a short time of 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:06.680 absence where he got over his humiliation, he licked his wounds, 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:10.280 so to speak, he went back, and that is extraordinary. 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:12.760 He went back and attended their services. 0:06:13.000 --> 0:06:17.200 Carol Baxter is very skeptical about Toll's commitment to Quakerism. 0:06:17.520 --> 0:06:20.960 She thinks it was just a shield against the suspicion 0:06:21.120 --> 0:06:23.520 around his suspicious behavior. 0:06:24.160 --> 0:06:28.880 He continued wearing their attire because again the attire was 0:06:28.960 --> 0:06:32.279 the mask that told everyone he was a good man, 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:36.159 and it hid the fact that underneath he really wasn't 0:06:36.240 --> 0:06:36.720 so good. 0:06:36.760 --> 0:06:38.920 He was a classic Jeckel and Hyde character. 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:44.039 Really, But historian Estzala isn't so sure. She's surprised that 0:06:44.160 --> 0:06:46.599 he continued to be committed to Quakerism. 0:06:47.520 --> 0:06:49.320 What I find really interesting is that you would want 0:06:49.360 --> 0:06:51.600 to people do still in this period, move in and 0:06:51.640 --> 0:06:54.880 out of different denominations of different religions, quite flexibly, and 0:06:55.040 --> 0:06:57.159 you can stay with one religion for a few years 0:06:57.160 --> 0:06:58.840 and then you change and you do something else. So 0:06:58.880 --> 0:07:01.200 he does seem to have idea to fay very strongly 0:07:01.279 --> 0:07:02.400 with Quakerism. 0:07:03.120 --> 0:07:06.480 So Tall had many religions to choose from, yet he 0:07:06.600 --> 0:07:10.200 returned to the group that had rejected him. Perhaps he 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:13.360 thought that his wealth would change things and his status 0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:19.280 would be resurrected, but it wasn't. The Tolls were once 0:07:19.320 --> 0:07:22.480 again allowed to attend meetings at the Quaker House, but 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:26.880 they weren't officially members. That must have been so humiliating 0:07:26.920 --> 0:07:31.320 for him. But it would get so much worse. Death 0:07:31.600 --> 0:07:34.760 was coming for the people closest to him, both from 0:07:34.920 --> 0:07:37.000 illness and murder. 0:07:39.120 --> 0:07:44.040 Unfortunately, it was the time of things like the cholera epidemic, 0:07:44.720 --> 0:07:48.080 which ravaged, of course many parts of London and things. 0:07:48.240 --> 0:07:51.120 Tuberculosis was such a problem. 0:07:51.440 --> 0:07:55.480 Did you know that in the two hundred years between 0:07:55.760 --> 0:08:02.120 eighteen hundred and two thousand, tuberculosis killed one billion people 0:08:02.200 --> 0:08:06.200 in the earth's population. One seventh of the world's population 0:08:06.520 --> 0:08:08.360 were killed by tuberculosis. 0:08:08.680 --> 0:08:13.360 Crime historian Angela Buckley says people in Victorian England were 0:08:13.400 --> 0:08:17.160 frightened of contracting deadly diseases like tuberculosis. 0:08:17.440 --> 0:08:20.360 I've been doing to working Manchester on this on quack doctors, 0:08:20.360 --> 0:08:23.800 and the mortality rate around this time was as age eighteen. 0:08:23.520 --> 0:08:24.640 For working class people. 0:08:24.880 --> 0:08:27.880 So people were terrified about their health and terrified about 0:08:27.880 --> 0:08:31.280 catching cholera or typhus or dysentery. You know that would 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:33.240 just wipe them out, wipe out communities. 0:08:33.520 --> 0:08:38.800 Tuberculosis again, the disease was also called consumption. John Tall 0:08:38.880 --> 0:08:41.960 had gotten it in Australia, probably at the hospital where 0:08:42.000 --> 0:08:47.280 he worked. He had been really sick. Consumption was incredibly contagious. 0:08:47.920 --> 0:08:51.640 Every cough emitted a spray of the disease which was 0:08:51.720 --> 0:08:57.080 targeting another host. And now tuberculosis was spreading across England. 0:08:57.880 --> 0:09:02.800 TV was a big part of John's John's youngest son, William, 0:09:03.000 --> 0:09:05.280 got TB and succumbed to it. 0:09:06.160 --> 0:09:11.040 Just like that, William was gone. His father seemed devastated, 0:09:11.640 --> 0:09:14.480 and then just a few months after returning from Australia, 0:09:14.720 --> 0:09:19.240 John Toll's wife, Mary and John Junior also developed that 0:09:19.440 --> 0:09:22.760 same cough and chest pain and fever. 0:09:23.559 --> 0:09:27.400 His wife Mary also had TB and his eldest son 0:09:27.559 --> 0:09:31.320 at some point acquired TB and the doctors advised them 0:09:31.360 --> 0:09:35.840 to return to Australia because the environment was better for. 0:09:35.559 --> 0:09:36.559 A TB patient. 0:09:36.840 --> 0:09:39.400 So they came out to Australia and they were back 0:09:39.440 --> 0:09:40.439 in New South Wales. 0:09:42.800 --> 0:09:46.840 But despite the change in climate, Mary continued to struggle 0:09:46.880 --> 0:09:50.800 with TB, as did Toll's son. Toll seemed to care 0:09:50.840 --> 0:09:54.080 for them both deeply, as illustrated by his willingness to 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:57.680 return to Australia. He could be loving at times, but 0:09:58.080 --> 0:10:03.360 other times he was terrible. John Junior was still struggling 0:10:03.440 --> 0:10:06.600 with tuberculosis when he had a conflict with his father, 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:09.400 and John Tall reacted. 0:10:09.000 --> 0:10:11.439 Cruelly his eldest son. 0:10:11.960 --> 0:10:16.800 He treated in many ways quite appallingly. So the guy 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:20.760 was suffering from TV and he went to his father's 0:10:20.800 --> 0:10:24.720 place to plead for money or whatever, and they found 0:10:24.760 --> 0:10:27.040 him actually out in the street, on the ground, literally 0:10:27.080 --> 0:10:29.360 on the ground. His father wouldn't let him in, so 0:10:29.400 --> 0:10:31.440 he was a very hard man. 0:10:31.800 --> 0:10:35.200 It didn't help his mood that the Australian climate seemed 0:10:35.240 --> 0:10:38.839 to have little effect on Mary and their son's illness. 0:10:39.000 --> 0:10:46.360 Soon John Junior died. It was a dark time for them, 0:10:46.760 --> 0:10:50.000 and Tall no longer had his businesses in Australia, so 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:53.000 he and Mary decided to return to England once again 0:10:53.520 --> 0:10:55.640 for the second time in less than a. 0:10:55.600 --> 0:11:02.200 Year, started to sell everything. 0:11:02.240 --> 0:11:05.640 He'd sold his pharmacy before this, back in the late twenties, 0:11:06.080 --> 0:11:09.199 and he started to sell everything up with the idea 0:11:09.240 --> 0:11:12.920 of returning to the UK and not coming back. 0:11:22.480 --> 0:11:26.200 The Tolls traveled back home with their family even smaller. 0:11:26.840 --> 0:11:29.640 John returned to London and they rented. 0:11:29.280 --> 0:11:33.360 Out a very exclusive property near Madam to Sawords. 0:11:33.920 --> 0:11:38.240 Tuberculosis could have killed John Toll. It had taken the 0:11:38.240 --> 0:11:41.720 lives of both of his children, and now back in England, 0:11:41.920 --> 0:11:46.520 his wife continued her battle with the disease. He began 0:11:46.640 --> 0:11:50.760 treating Mary with medicines. Remember he was an excellent druggist. 0:11:51.520 --> 0:11:54.000 I told Meg Edwards that I thought this was a 0:11:54.040 --> 0:11:57.640 pretty big sacrifice for Tolldamke because t B was so 0:11:57.880 --> 0:12:02.040 contagious and he risked getting sick again, But she didn't 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:03.199 quite see it that way. 0:12:04.120 --> 0:12:06.360 Again, this is another thing of I think it probably 0:12:06.400 --> 0:12:09.559 made sense to him, whether it's convenience, whether it's. 0:12:09.520 --> 0:12:10.760 Maybe a little bit of arrogance. 0:12:11.000 --> 0:12:12.800 He probably thought he was the best person for the 0:12:12.880 --> 0:12:13.800 job to look after her. 0:12:13.920 --> 0:12:15.160 He knew what he. 0:12:15.120 --> 0:12:17.880 Was talking about to an extent. He certainly knew where 0:12:17.920 --> 0:12:21.360 to find particular medicines. He looked after her to the 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:23.920 point of where it made sense to bring in other people. 0:12:27.040 --> 0:12:30.640 John Tall's wife seemed to be dying and he continued 0:12:30.640 --> 0:12:35.000 to oversee her treatment. Eventually, her illness would set off 0:12:35.080 --> 0:12:38.800 a chain of events that would end in murder. But 0:12:38.920 --> 0:12:51.400 it's definitely not what you think. John Tall needed to 0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:54.000 make an income in London and he couldn't afford to 0:12:54.040 --> 0:12:57.440 catch tuberculosis from Mary, so he made a decision that 0:12:57.480 --> 0:13:00.960 would change the direction of his life. He asked a 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:04.199 friend for a recommendation for some professional help. 0:13:04.640 --> 0:13:08.240 They brought in a nursemaid to look after his wife. 0:13:08.760 --> 0:13:12.000 Meg Edwards says the woman was bright and reliable. 0:13:12.360 --> 0:13:15.600 He brings in Sarah Hart, who is a young nurse 0:13:15.640 --> 0:13:17.080 who's been recommended to him. 0:13:17.559 --> 0:13:20.360 Sarah would take care of Mary as she struggled with TV, 0:13:20.800 --> 0:13:24.760 allowing John to work. This might seem like a cliche setup, 0:13:24.840 --> 0:13:27.160 a man bringing in a younger woman to help his 0:13:27.280 --> 0:13:30.280 dying wife. It doesn't sound like it'll go very well, 0:13:31.040 --> 0:13:34.080 but Carol Baxter says Sarah didn't seem to have any 0:13:34.160 --> 0:13:35.520 ulterior motives. 0:13:36.600 --> 0:13:41.479 She wasn't the gold digger type at all, fluttering her eyelashes. 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:45.040 I think she was just a sweet person. 0:13:45.480 --> 0:13:48.600 So I just got the sense of her as being 0:13:48.840 --> 0:13:54.319 a genuinely nice, caring person who was the ideal person 0:13:54.400 --> 0:13:55.760 to act as a nurse. 0:13:56.600 --> 0:14:00.320 And though he was about thirty years her senior, John Hall, 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:03.200 was attractive. He had a nice house, a good income, 0:14:03.400 --> 0:14:07.200 and he seemed kind. He would make an excellent husband. 0:14:07.720 --> 0:14:10.720 But still at this point it seemed innocent on both 0:14:10.720 --> 0:14:13.400 their parts. Carol Baxter thinks that too. 0:14:14.559 --> 0:14:18.760 I had no sense of him having cheated on his wife, 0:14:19.440 --> 0:14:23.200 and I can't imagine that Sarah would have done that either. 0:14:23.680 --> 0:14:26.800 I thought she had morality and integrity, so I think 0:14:26.800 --> 0:14:35.560 she was a decent human being. 0:14:37.560 --> 0:14:40.400 It was late eighteen thirty eight, just a few months 0:14:40.440 --> 0:14:43.760 after the Tolls had returned from Australia for the second time. 0:14:44.480 --> 0:14:47.760 Sarah Hart cared for Mary Tall while her husband gave 0:14:47.800 --> 0:14:51.560 his wife medicine. Caring for someone with TB was a 0:14:51.640 --> 0:14:54.960 dangerous job for both of them. Medical researchers in the 0:14:55.000 --> 0:14:59.160 early eighteen hundreds didn't quite understand how tuberculosis worked. 0:15:00.120 --> 0:15:03.680 The problem was, in those days, they didn't realize that 0:15:03.880 --> 0:15:08.160 TB was a bacterial infection. So they didn't realize that 0:15:08.320 --> 0:15:14.000 every cough or sneeze sent sprays of millions of TV 0:15:14.680 --> 0:15:17.600 into the air. Western medicine really only came into its 0:15:17.600 --> 0:15:20.320 own from probably the eighteen fifties onwards. 0:15:20.400 --> 0:15:22.720 There was a lot of herbal medicine in the eighteen hundreds. 0:15:23.040 --> 0:15:25.560 Through herbs and other things, they did manage to solve 0:15:25.600 --> 0:15:26.920 a lot of medical problems. 0:15:27.400 --> 0:15:29.080 With the development of Western medicine. 0:15:29.080 --> 0:15:32.880 They started to understand germ theory, and they understood how 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:36.560 tuberculosis was passed on from one person to another. So 0:15:36.720 --> 0:15:39.800 there probably wasn't the same sense of contracting it as 0:15:39.840 --> 0:15:43.520 a nurse because they didn't understand how it was transmitted. 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:49.360 Sarah Hart took diligent care of Mary, but eventually tuberculosis 0:15:49.440 --> 0:15:53.600 proved to be too much for Mary's body. She died 0:15:53.640 --> 0:16:01.360 in December of eighteen thirty eight. John seemed to mourn 0:16:01.480 --> 0:16:06.280 his wife's death. Despite the prevalence of death from disease 0:16:06.360 --> 0:16:09.960 in Victorian England, it still felt like a shock. Just 0:16:10.000 --> 0:16:12.720 a short while before, he had been a family man, 0:16:13.240 --> 0:16:16.160 and now he was without a wife and without both 0:16:16.160 --> 0:16:20.760 of his sons. So after Mary died, John Tall did 0:16:20.800 --> 0:16:23.960 what so many people do when they find themselves drifting 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:29.040 through life alone, he turned to the closest person to him. 0:16:31.120 --> 0:16:35.360 He and Sarah Hart, his wife's nurse, soon began an 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:37.720 affair that lasted for years. 0:16:38.560 --> 0:16:41.440 So I think was probably in the aftermath of Mary's death, 0:16:41.960 --> 0:16:46.400 where John was probably very lonely because he was a 0:16:46.600 --> 0:16:51.680 convict returned to England with wealth and money. 0:16:51.880 --> 0:16:55.080 Tall had been respected in Australia, but in England he 0:16:55.240 --> 0:16:58.280 wasn't high society anymore like he had hoped to be. 0:16:58.960 --> 0:17:02.840 The Quakers were letting him in, but he still wasn't 0:17:02.920 --> 0:17:06.760 accepted as a Quaker that the people he associated with 0:17:06.880 --> 0:17:10.480 from a business point of view, knew his background. His 0:17:10.880 --> 0:17:15.320 financial situation was heavily tied up with the import export business, 0:17:15.680 --> 0:17:18.159 and to do that he needed to go down to 0:17:18.200 --> 0:17:21.399 the coffee shops where he got the newspapers, and he 0:17:21.440 --> 0:17:24.360 met with the shipping agents, and of course they all 0:17:24.400 --> 0:17:27.240 knew he was a transported convict. 0:17:27.119 --> 0:17:30.280 So he had that indelible stain on him. 0:17:30.600 --> 0:17:32.080 So you think he was lonely. 0:17:31.960 --> 0:17:36.000 And Sarah was probably lonely too, and Sarah was available, 0:17:36.320 --> 0:17:41.159 and things just happened. From the dates of birth of 0:17:41.200 --> 0:17:44.000 the children, I got no sense of anything. 0:17:44.040 --> 0:17:45.560 Possibly happening beforehand. 0:17:45.960 --> 0:17:48.639 What did Sarah Hort see in John Tole? 0:17:49.400 --> 0:17:54.520 She was probably so sweet, and perhaps she saw John 0:17:54.960 --> 0:17:58.520 in the aftermath of his wife's death, where she stayed 0:17:58.520 --> 0:18:02.640 on as his housekeeper. Perhaps she saw him as stepping 0:18:02.720 --> 0:18:04.480 stone to marriage. 0:18:05.720 --> 0:18:08.040 So they ended up in a period of what two years, 0:18:08.119 --> 0:18:10.320 where they have these two children or is it even 0:18:10.320 --> 0:18:10.840 longer than that? 0:18:11.840 --> 0:18:14.080 Not much more than two years, so we're pretty close. 0:18:14.160 --> 0:18:17.560 One after another, a boy, Alfred and then a little 0:18:17.560 --> 0:18:18.360 girl Sarah. 0:18:19.080 --> 0:18:22.600 This wasn't a flang. This relationship, if you could call it, 0:18:22.640 --> 0:18:26.760 that went on for seven years. But if Sarah Hart 0:18:26.800 --> 0:18:30.639 were thinking of marrying John Tall, it was wishful thinking. 0:18:31.440 --> 0:18:34.080 I can't possibly see that he would ever have considered 0:18:34.080 --> 0:18:34.800 marrying Sarah. 0:18:34.920 --> 0:18:36.960 She didn't offer him anything. 0:18:37.320 --> 0:18:41.040 He wanted to succeed professionally and with the Quakers, and 0:18:41.080 --> 0:18:43.959 she wasn't the sort of person who offered him money, 0:18:44.320 --> 0:18:48.000 opportunity or anything else. So no, I cannot possibly see 0:18:48.080 --> 0:18:50.760 him as ever having wanted to marry her. 0:18:51.440 --> 0:18:54.920 Sarah was attractive and kind, but she had no standing 0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:58.480 in the community. She could do nothing to elevate him 0:18:58.520 --> 0:19:03.280 with the Quakers. Would never marry her, But John Tall 0:19:03.480 --> 0:19:06.000 did provide for Sarah and their two children. 0:19:06.840 --> 0:19:09.760 He started off with them being in London and he 0:19:09.840 --> 0:19:12.240 moved them around a couple of places in London. 0:19:13.359 --> 0:19:16.920 Tall didn't abandon them as many men would, but that's 0:19:16.920 --> 0:19:20.919 not saying much. Though he did visit them regularly and 0:19:20.960 --> 0:19:26.000 had meals with them. He and Sarah Hart carried on 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:29.359 their affair, but Sarah was told to stay quiet about 0:19:29.359 --> 0:19:33.440 their relationship. She and the kids had to remain a secret. 0:19:33.920 --> 0:19:37.639 Tall couldn't risk his other life being exposed to the Quakers. 0:19:37.960 --> 0:19:40.879 He had recently been invited back, not as a member, 0:19:41.200 --> 0:19:44.959 but he was welcome to attend meetings despite his dubious past. 0:19:45.520 --> 0:19:48.399 So Tall agreed to keep Sarah and the children in 0:19:48.440 --> 0:19:51.840 a secret home. He paid her child support, which was 0:19:52.000 --> 0:19:55.280 a modest amount one pound a week, but he was 0:19:55.520 --> 0:20:01.000 very clear she must stay silent. Discretion was exp and 0:20:01.080 --> 0:20:19.280 disobedience would not be tolerated. Away from Sarah Hart and 0:20:19.320 --> 0:20:22.840 the children, John Tall searched for a new life. 0:20:23.480 --> 0:20:25.640 I mean they say most men marry within a year 0:20:25.680 --> 0:20:29.879 of their wife's death, because I'm never quite sure whether 0:20:29.920 --> 0:20:32.359 it's for sex, or whether it's for a cook, or 0:20:32.359 --> 0:20:35.280 whether it's just they're not capable of being on their own. 0:20:35.480 --> 0:20:38.240 I'm not quite sure women seem to not have that 0:20:38.359 --> 0:20:43.240 same need to marry, and so maybe in a sense, Sarah, 0:20:43.480 --> 0:20:46.359 because she was his housekeeper, she provided all those means, 0:20:46.520 --> 0:20:48.679 you know, the bed and board sort of things. She cooked, 0:20:48.720 --> 0:20:50.240 she cleaned, she filled his bed. 0:20:50.680 --> 0:20:54.320 After Mary's death, Tall's affair with Sarah Hart wouldn't stop 0:20:54.400 --> 0:20:58.119 him from marrying someone other than her. He needed someone 0:20:58.200 --> 0:21:02.920 who could help him both financial and in the Quaker society. 0:21:03.240 --> 0:21:06.560 The year following his first wife's death, he found her. 0:21:06.840 --> 0:21:11.960 Despite secretly sleeping with his former nurse, Sarah Appleby was attractive, 0:21:12.320 --> 0:21:17.400 kind and bright, and a birthright Quaker. They met in Birkhamsted, 0:21:17.520 --> 0:21:20.480 where I've been visiting with Hillary and Gerald and Meg. 0:21:21.040 --> 0:21:24.280 I asked crime historian Angela Buckley about that area in 0:21:24.320 --> 0:21:26.000 the mid eighteen hundreds. 0:21:26.600 --> 0:21:30.600 It would be quite rural, Yeah, absolutely, mostly farming communities, 0:21:31.080 --> 0:21:35.080 small market towns, so quite big difference. Actually, if you've 0:21:35.119 --> 0:21:39.520 been successful building pharmacies, you know, creating a chain or 0:21:39.560 --> 0:21:41.760 creating a business, to go back to Birkhamsted will be 0:21:41.840 --> 0:21:42.480 quite sleepy. 0:21:43.240 --> 0:21:46.800 Sarah Appleby might have lived a simple life away from London, 0:21:47.280 --> 0:21:49.720 but she had higher ambitions. 0:21:50.119 --> 0:21:54.520 She was a very smart, capable woman, and she met 0:21:54.600 --> 0:21:59.600 his intellectual aspiration. She was also a Quaker, so she 0:21:59.720 --> 0:22:03.920 met his Quaker aspirations as well. She would help him 0:22:04.359 --> 0:22:06.960 get back into the fold, so to speak. 0:22:07.480 --> 0:22:08.680 She was very respectable. 0:22:09.200 --> 0:22:13.320 She was from a very good quote unquote Quaker family, 0:22:13.960 --> 0:22:14.679 Quaker home. 0:22:15.520 --> 0:22:19.719 I asked Carol Baxter why such a seemingly wonderful woman 0:22:19.880 --> 0:22:24.360 would marry John Tall. I didn't understand why that would happen. 0:22:24.600 --> 0:22:27.680 He's been disowned, he's been sent to a penal colony, 0:22:27.840 --> 0:22:32.400 he's struggling financially. She doesn't know about Sarah number one. 0:22:32.640 --> 0:22:36.600 But what would possess a woman who clearly brings something 0:22:36.640 --> 0:22:39.600 to the table to take this man when there are 0:22:39.720 --> 0:22:42.080 probably other nice Quaker men around. 0:22:44.000 --> 0:22:46.560 You're right, there must have been something for him to 0:22:46.680 --> 0:22:49.960 appeal to that sort of a person. Again, I guess 0:22:49.960 --> 0:22:54.440 he must have had that that mask, because she clearly 0:22:54.520 --> 0:22:57.480 loved him. I mean, we've got letters and things to him, 0:22:57.600 --> 0:22:59.840 and they were clearly devoted to each other. 0:23:00.359 --> 0:23:02.880 So he really did have two sides. 0:23:04.840 --> 0:23:07.280 I guess he was split, you know, very much split 0:23:07.400 --> 0:23:10.680 in terms of who he was the Jekyl and Hyde character, 0:23:11.240 --> 0:23:14.800 the doctor Jekyl is the nice side of him, and 0:23:15.160 --> 0:23:19.160 that was the Doctor Jekyll's side that saw and appealed 0:23:19.200 --> 0:23:22.600 to Sarah Appleby. It was the Mistress Hyde side that 0:23:23.040 --> 0:23:25.480 was the Sarah Hart side. 0:23:26.119 --> 0:23:29.800 Meg Edwards says, there might be a simpler explanation. 0:23:30.440 --> 0:23:31.800 You know, she's been married before, and she has a 0:23:31.880 --> 0:23:34.640 child that certainly aunt an interesting element of Perhaps that's 0:23:34.680 --> 0:23:37.600 why she it wasn't quite so big of a leap 0:23:37.680 --> 0:23:40.119 to marry a Quaker who was out of favor. 0:23:40.480 --> 0:23:44.600 Sarah Appleby also had ambitions when she met John Toll 0:23:44.680 --> 0:23:48.280 in eighteen thirty nine, she was teaching young girls to 0:23:48.400 --> 0:23:50.840 help them become self sufficient women. 0:23:51.440 --> 0:23:54.760 She was setting up a school at the time for 0:23:55.280 --> 0:23:56.439 young girls for women. 0:23:57.000 --> 0:24:00.320 Women's education in the early nineteenth century was not a given. 0:24:01.240 --> 0:24:04.160 I think that's one of the things that attracted her 0:24:04.280 --> 0:24:08.720 to John was that he had similar values of championing 0:24:08.800 --> 0:24:13.000 women's education. Yeah, so she was clearly an interesting time 0:24:13.040 --> 0:24:15.840 in her life setting up the school in berkhams Stead, 0:24:15.960 --> 0:24:18.920 and that's when they met and they got married. He 0:24:19.040 --> 0:24:21.480 was very much flip flopping in and out of the 0:24:21.920 --> 0:24:24.360 Quaker church, in and out of the Quaker favor. 0:24:26.320 --> 0:24:29.439 Sarah Appleby's school in Birkhamsted was a boarding school in 0:24:29.480 --> 0:24:33.719 a day school. Historian Angela Buckley says Appleby was a 0:24:33.840 --> 0:24:36.440 pioneer in the area of women's education. 0:24:37.440 --> 0:24:40.399 Well, nobody was required to be educated until eighteen seventy, 0:24:40.760 --> 0:24:43.359 you know, it wasn't statutory to eighteen seventy anyway. And 0:24:43.440 --> 0:24:46.399