Speaker 1: This story contains adult content and language. Listener discretion is advised.
Speaker 2: There's some hidden back there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it always happens to me.
Speaker 4: It changed.
Speaker 1: I'm with Gerald and Hilary Fox and their granddaughter Meg
Speaker 1: Edwards in Birkhamsted, England. We're exploring the grounds of the
Speaker 1: Quaker meetinghouse, where John Tall would meet with fellow Quakers
Speaker 1: later in his life. The small cemetery there is well kept,
Speaker 1: but we're hoping to look at the little lawn in
Speaker 1: the back for a small village. Berkhamsted has a lot
Speaker 1: of construction today, so it's hard to talk.
Speaker 4: So I wonder if this is all original?
Speaker 3: My ELPs, what is it?
Speaker 1: The building was made in nineteen eighteen.
Speaker 4: I think there was there was a shadow of something.
Speaker 2: Maybe the eighth look like a yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: I just obstruct by how modest this is compared to
Speaker 1: the church. I mean, it's amazing.
Speaker 2: That is the thing that click is very, very.
Speaker 1: Simpl This meeting house and its property is so important
Speaker 1: because John Taull would stroll these same grounds more than
Speaker 1: one hundred and seventy years earlier. No amount of research
Speaker 1: in an archive can replace that. But I can't always
Speaker 1: control the environment.
Speaker 4: See what.
Speaker 1: It was too noisy, so I tried to move to
Speaker 1: another location further in the back by the bushes. But
Speaker 1: no luck. None of this is working out. And perhaps
Speaker 1: I've received an omen because I got my first injury
Speaker 1: on the job.
Speaker 3: Oh I grabbed a.
Speaker 1: Bush over there and it oh, yeah, it's okay.
Speaker 5: I was trying to move for this.
Speaker 3: It's okay.
Speaker 1: It's stings.
Speaker 3: See it's oh.
Speaker 1: I just for something in there, see it?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Good tho, Yes, there's a there.
Speaker 5: You need tweezes to get it out.
Speaker 1: I have tweezers at home, but you both sweet, thank you.
Speaker 1: After I recovered from the thorn, I left the meetinghouse
Speaker 1: with the Foxes and Meg. Now we need to go
Speaker 1: back in time and actually leave the country. John Taull's
Speaker 1: story continues in Australia in eighteen twenty three. By then,
Speaker 1: John Tall, the convicted forger and suspected thief, had been
Speaker 1: building a lovely life in a penal colony in Sydney
Speaker 1: for almost a decade. He had established the first Quaker
Speaker 1: house in the country. He sat on the board of
Speaker 1: a bank. His pharmacies and various real estate deals led
Speaker 1: to a lucrative importing exporting business, and Tall's family lived
Speaker 1: in a lovely home. That year he had sent for
Speaker 1: his wife Mary and his two sons, John and William.
Speaker 1: Little is known about the young men, but Tall's great
Speaker 1: great granddaughter, Hilary Fox, has done a bit of research
Speaker 1: on their life in Australia.
Speaker 2: The boys were educated at Doctor Halleran Sydney Grammar School.
Speaker 2: In eighteen twenty four, William Henry won a book prize
Speaker 2: and John Downing a silver medal for Latin.
Speaker 1: Five years later, the country's census gave details about John
Speaker 1: Tall's pharmacy business and his other son, John Junior.
Speaker 2: In eighteen twenty eight, Ambrose Fostport the business. By the
Speaker 2: time of that year's sinceus retired apothecary, John Tull was
Speaker 2: living in Castlereah Street with his wife, and the seventeen
Speaker 2: year old youngest son, William John Junior, was in England
Speaker 2: and studying in medicine. That that was the only reference
Speaker 2: I've ever seen for those children.
Speaker 1: Clearly, both of the younger Tall men were bright and
Speaker 1: their father had expected much of them. That's what their
Speaker 1: education tells us. Tall's fourteen year prison sentence expired in
Speaker 1: eighteen twenty eight and author Carol Baxter says he could
Speaker 1: have taken the family back to England immediately. I asked, Carol,
Speaker 1: when most people who were convicted of crimes were allowed
Speaker 1: to leave the penal colony? Was it when they served
Speaker 1: out their sentence.
Speaker 3: They had different ways of ending a sentence. Your sentence
Speaker 3: could be time expired, in which case with a seven
Speaker 3: year or a fourteen year sentence. Once the sentence expired,
Speaker 3: yes you were free to do whatever you wanted, but
Speaker 3: you would have to pay your passage back to the UK.
Speaker 3: And most of them didn't have enough money to pay
Speaker 3: their passage, so essentially it was a life sentence.
Speaker 1: But Tall did have the money to leave, and yet
Speaker 1: he stayed for another ten years because he was so
Speaker 1: successful in Australia. But by eighteen thirty eight it was
Speaker 1: time to return to England. Finally, the Talls packed up
Speaker 1: their belongings.
Speaker 3: And John and his family actually went back to the UK.
Speaker 1: For the return trip. The Tolls traveled aboard a much
Speaker 1: nicer ship than the one John Tall had taken to
Speaker 1: Australia two decades before. John Tall was returning to England
Speaker 1: wealthier than before, much wealthier and more confident, but still sneaky.
Speaker 1: He had become a significant figure in Quakerism in Australia
Speaker 1: after he had been cast out by the Quakers in England.
Speaker 1: So now the question was would he return to the
Speaker 1: Quakers when he got home.
Speaker 3: He'd really only just been accepted when he was booted out.
Speaker 3: The astonishing thing, though, is after a short time of
Speaker 3: absence where he got over his humiliation, he licked his wounds,
Speaker 3: so to speak, he went back, and that is extraordinary.
Speaker 3: He went back and attended their services.
Speaker 1: Carol Baxter is very skeptical about Toll's commitment to Quakerism.
Speaker 1: She thinks it was just a shield against the suspicion
Speaker 1: around his suspicious behavior.
Speaker 3: He continued wearing their attire because again the attire was
Speaker 3: the mask that told everyone he was a good man,
Speaker 3: and it hid the fact that underneath he really wasn't
Speaker 3: so good.
Speaker 4: He was a classic Jeckel and Hyde character.
Speaker 1: Really, But historian Estzala isn't so sure. She's surprised that
Speaker 1: he continued to be committed to Quakerism.
Speaker 6: What I find really interesting is that you would want
Speaker 6: to people do still in this period, move in and
Speaker 6: out of different denominations of different religions, quite flexibly, and
Speaker 6: you can stay with one religion for a few years
Speaker 6: and then you change and you do something else. So
Speaker 6: he does seem to have idea to fay very strongly
Speaker 6: with Quakerism.
Speaker 1: So Tall had many religions to choose from, yet he
Speaker 1: returned to the group that had rejected him. Perhaps he
Speaker 1: thought that his wealth would change things and his status
Speaker 1: would be resurrected, but it wasn't. The Tolls were once
Speaker 1: again allowed to attend meetings at the Quaker House, but
Speaker 1: they weren't officially members. That must have been so humiliating
Speaker 1: for him. But it would get so much worse. Death
Speaker 1: was coming for the people closest to him, both from
Speaker 1: illness and murder.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately, it was the time of things like the cholera epidemic,
Speaker 3: which ravaged, of course many parts of London and things.
Speaker 4: Tuberculosis was such a problem.
Speaker 3: Did you know that in the two hundred years between
Speaker 3: eighteen hundred and two thousand, tuberculosis killed one billion people
Speaker 3: in the earth's population. One seventh of the world's population
Speaker 3: were killed by tuberculosis.
Speaker 1: Crime historian Angela Buckley says people in Victorian England were
Speaker 1: frightened of contracting deadly diseases like tuberculosis.
Speaker 7: I've been doing to working Manchester on this on quack doctors,
Speaker 7: and the mortality rate around this time was as age eighteen.
Speaker 5: For working class people.
Speaker 7: So people were terrified about their health and terrified about
Speaker 7: catching cholera or typhus or dysentery. You know that would
Speaker 7: just wipe them out, wipe out communities.
Speaker 1: Tuberculosis again, the disease was also called consumption. John Tall
Speaker 1: had gotten it in Australia, probably at the hospital where
Speaker 1: he worked. He had been really sick. Consumption was incredibly contagious.
Speaker 1: Every cough emitted a spray of the disease which was
Speaker 1: targeting another host. And now tuberculosis was spreading across England.
Speaker 3: TV was a big part of John's John's youngest son, William,
Speaker 3: got TB and succumbed to it.
Speaker 1: Just like that, William was gone. His father seemed devastated,
Speaker 1: and then just a few months after returning from Australia,
Speaker 1: John Toll's wife, Mary and John Junior also developed that
Speaker 1: same cough and chest pain and fever.
Speaker 3: His wife Mary also had TB and his eldest son
Speaker 3: at some point acquired TB and the doctors advised them
Speaker 3: to return to Australia because the environment was better for.
Speaker 4: A TB patient.
Speaker 3: So they came out to Australia and they were back
Speaker 3: in New South Wales.
Speaker 1: But despite the change in climate, Mary continued to struggle
Speaker 1: with TB, as did Toll's son. Toll seemed to care
Speaker 1: for them both deeply, as illustrated by his willingness to
Speaker 1: return to Australia. He could be loving at times, but
Speaker 1: other times he was terrible. John Junior was still struggling
Speaker 1: with tuberculosis when he had a conflict with his father,
Speaker 1: and John Tall reacted.
Speaker 4: Cruelly his eldest son.
Speaker 3: He treated in many ways quite appallingly. So the guy
Speaker 3: was suffering from TV and he went to his father's
Speaker 3: place to plead for money or whatever, and they found
Speaker 3: him actually out in the street, on the ground, literally
Speaker 3: on the ground. His father wouldn't let him in, so
Speaker 3: he was a very hard man.
Speaker 1: It didn't help his mood that the Australian climate seemed
Speaker 1: to have little effect on Mary and their son's illness.
Speaker 1: Soon John Junior died. It was a dark time for them,
Speaker 1: and Tall no longer had his businesses in Australia, so
Speaker 1: he and Mary decided to return to England once again
Speaker 1: for the second time in less than a.
Speaker 4: Year, started to sell everything.
Speaker 3: He'd sold his pharmacy before this, back in the late twenties,
Speaker 3: and he started to sell everything up with the idea
Speaker 3: of returning to the UK and not coming back.
Speaker 1: The Tolls traveled back home with their family even smaller.
Speaker 4: John returned to London and they rented.
Speaker 3: Out a very exclusive property near Madam to Sawords.
Speaker 1: Tuberculosis could have killed John Toll. It had taken the
Speaker 1: lives of both of his children, and now back in England,
Speaker 1: his wife continued her battle with the disease. He began
Speaker 1: treating Mary with medicines. Remember he was an excellent druggist.
Speaker 1: I told Meg Edwards that I thought this was a
Speaker 1: pretty big sacrifice for Tolldamke because t B was so
Speaker 1: contagious and he risked getting sick again, But she didn't
Speaker 1: quite see it that way.
Speaker 8: Again, this is another thing of I think it probably
Speaker 8: made sense to him, whether it's convenience, whether it's.
Speaker 5: Maybe a little bit of arrogance.
Speaker 8: He probably thought he was the best person for the
Speaker 8: job to look after her.
Speaker 5: He knew what he.
Speaker 8: Was talking about to an extent. He certainly knew where
Speaker 8: to find particular medicines. He looked after her to the
Speaker 8: point of where it made sense to bring in other people.
Speaker 1: John Tall's wife seemed to be dying and he continued
Speaker 1: to oversee her treatment. Eventually, her illness would set off
Speaker 1: a chain of events that would end in murder. But
Speaker 1: it's definitely not what you think. John Tall needed to
Speaker 1: make an income in London and he couldn't afford to
Speaker 1: catch tuberculosis from Mary, so he made a decision that
Speaker 1: would change the direction of his life. He asked a
Speaker 1: friend for a recommendation for some professional help.
Speaker 3: They brought in a nursemaid to look after his wife.
Speaker 1: Meg Edwards says the woman was bright and reliable.
Speaker 8: He brings in Sarah Hart, who is a young nurse
Speaker 8: who's been recommended to him.
Speaker 1: Sarah would take care of Mary as she struggled with TV,
Speaker 1: allowing John to work. This might seem like a cliche setup,
Speaker 1: a man bringing in a younger woman to help his
Speaker 1: dying wife. It doesn't sound like it'll go very well,
Speaker 1: but Carol Baxter says Sarah didn't seem to have any
Speaker 1: ulterior motives.
Speaker 3: She wasn't the gold digger type at all, fluttering her eyelashes.
Speaker 4: I think she was just a sweet person.
Speaker 3: So I just got the sense of her as being
Speaker 3: a genuinely nice, caring person who was the ideal person
Speaker 3: to act as a nurse.
Speaker 1: And though he was about thirty years her senior, John Hall,
Speaker 1: was attractive. He had a nice house, a good income,
Speaker 1: and he seemed kind. He would make an excellent husband.
Speaker 1: But still at this point it seemed innocent on both
Speaker 1: their parts. Carol Baxter thinks that too.
Speaker 3: I had no sense of him having cheated on his wife,
Speaker 3: and I can't imagine that Sarah would have done that either.
Speaker 3: I thought she had morality and integrity, so I think
Speaker 3: she was a decent human being.
Speaker 1: It was late eighteen thirty eight, just a few months
Speaker 1: after the Tolls had returned from Australia for the second time.
Speaker 1: Sarah Hart cared for Mary Tall while her husband gave
Speaker 1: his wife medicine. Caring for someone with TB was a
Speaker 1: dangerous job for both of them. Medical researchers in the
Speaker 1: early eighteen hundreds didn't quite understand how tuberculosis worked.
Speaker 3: The problem was, in those days, they didn't realize that
Speaker 3: TB was a bacterial infection. So they didn't realize that
Speaker 3: every cough or sneeze sent sprays of millions of TV
Speaker 3: into the air. Western medicine really only came into its
Speaker 3: own from probably the eighteen fifties onwards.
Speaker 1: There was a lot of herbal medicine in the eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 3: Through herbs and other things, they did manage to solve
Speaker 3: a lot of medical problems.
Speaker 4: With the development of Western medicine.
Speaker 3: They started to understand germ theory, and they understood how
Speaker 3: tuberculosis was passed on from one person to another. So
Speaker 3: there probably wasn't the same sense of contracting it as
Speaker 3: a nurse because they didn't understand how it was transmitted.
Speaker 1: Sarah Hart took diligent care of Mary, but eventually tuberculosis
Speaker 1: proved to be too much for Mary's body. She died
Speaker 1: in December of eighteen thirty eight. John seemed to mourn
Speaker 1: his wife's death. Despite the prevalence of death from disease
Speaker 1: in Victorian England, it still felt like a shock. Just
Speaker 1: a short while before, he had been a family man,
Speaker 1: and now he was without a wife and without both
Speaker 1: of his sons. So after Mary died, John Tall did
Speaker 1: what so many people do when they find themselves drifting
Speaker 1: through life alone, he turned to the closest person to him.
Speaker 1: He and Sarah Hart, his wife's nurse, soon began an
Speaker 1: affair that lasted for years.
Speaker 3: So I think was probably in the aftermath of Mary's death,
Speaker 3: where John was probably very lonely because he was a
Speaker 3: convict returned to England with wealth and money.
Speaker 1: Tall had been respected in Australia, but in England he
Speaker 1: wasn't high society anymore like he had hoped to be.
Speaker 3: The Quakers were letting him in, but he still wasn't
Speaker 3: accepted as a Quaker that the people he associated with
Speaker 3: from a business point of view, knew his background. His
Speaker 3: financial situation was heavily tied up with the import export business,
Speaker 3: and to do that he needed to go down to
Speaker 3: the coffee shops where he got the newspapers, and he
Speaker 3: met with the shipping agents, and of course they all
Speaker 3: knew he was a transported convict.
Speaker 4: So he had that indelible stain on him.
Speaker 1: So you think he was lonely.
Speaker 3: And Sarah was probably lonely too, and Sarah was available,
Speaker 3: and things just happened. From the dates of birth of
Speaker 3: the children, I got no sense of anything.
Speaker 4: Possibly happening beforehand.
Speaker 1: What did Sarah Hort see in John Tole?
Speaker 3: She was probably so sweet, and perhaps she saw John
Speaker 3: in the aftermath of his wife's death, where she stayed
Speaker 3: on as his housekeeper. Perhaps she saw him as stepping
Speaker 3: stone to marriage.
Speaker 1: So they ended up in a period of what two years,
Speaker 1: where they have these two children or is it even
Speaker 1: longer than that?
Speaker 4: Not much more than two years, so we're pretty close.
Speaker 3: One after another, a boy, Alfred and then a little
Speaker 3: girl Sarah.
Speaker 1: This wasn't a flang. This relationship, if you could call it,
Speaker 1: that went on for seven years. But if Sarah Hart
Speaker 1: were thinking of marrying John Tall, it was wishful thinking.
Speaker 3: I can't possibly see that he would ever have considered
Speaker 3: marrying Sarah.
Speaker 4: She didn't offer him anything.
Speaker 3: He wanted to succeed professionally and with the Quakers, and
Speaker 3: she wasn't the sort of person who offered him money,
Speaker 3: opportunity or anything else. So no, I cannot possibly see
Speaker 3: him as ever having wanted to marry her.
Speaker 1: Sarah was attractive and kind, but she had no standing
Speaker 1: in the community. She could do nothing to elevate him
Speaker 1: with the Quakers. Would never marry her, But John Tall
Speaker 1: did provide for Sarah and their two children.
Speaker 3: He started off with them being in London and he
Speaker 3: moved them around a couple of places in London.
Speaker 1: Tall didn't abandon them as many men would, but that's
Speaker 1: not saying much. Though he did visit them regularly and
Speaker 1: had meals with them. He and Sarah Hart carried on
Speaker 1: their affair, but Sarah was told to stay quiet about
Speaker 1: their relationship. She and the kids had to remain a secret.
Speaker 1: Tall couldn't risk his other life being exposed to the Quakers.
Speaker 1: He had recently been invited back, not as a member,
Speaker 1: but he was welcome to attend meetings despite his dubious past.
Speaker 1: So Tall agreed to keep Sarah and the children in
Speaker 1: a secret home. He paid her child support, which was
Speaker 1: a modest amount one pound a week, but he was
Speaker 1: very clear she must stay silent. Discretion was exp and
Speaker 1: disobedience would not be tolerated. Away from Sarah Hart and
Speaker 1: the children, John Tall searched for a new life.
Speaker 3: I mean they say most men marry within a year
Speaker 3: of their wife's death, because I'm never quite sure whether
Speaker 3: it's for sex, or whether it's for a cook, or
Speaker 3: whether it's just they're not capable of being on their own.
Speaker 3: I'm not quite sure women seem to not have that
Speaker 3: same need to marry, and so maybe in a sense, Sarah,
Speaker 3: because she was his housekeeper, she provided all those means,
Speaker 3: you know, the bed and board sort of things. She cooked,
Speaker 3: she cleaned, she filled his bed.
Speaker 1: After Mary's death, Tall's affair with Sarah Hart wouldn't stop
Speaker 1: him from marrying someone other than her. He needed someone
Speaker 1: who could help him both financial and in the Quaker society.
Speaker 1: The year following his first wife's death, he found her.
Speaker 1: Despite secretly sleeping with his former nurse, Sarah Appleby was attractive,
Speaker 1: kind and bright, and a birthright Quaker. They met in Birkhamsted,
Speaker 1: where I've been visiting with Hillary and Gerald and Meg.
Speaker 1: I asked crime historian Angela Buckley about that area in
Speaker 1: the mid eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 7: It would be quite rural, Yeah, absolutely, mostly farming communities,
Speaker 7: small market towns, so quite big difference. Actually, if you've
Speaker 7: been successful building pharmacies, you know, creating a chain or
Speaker 7: creating a business, to go back to Birkhamsted will be
Speaker 7: quite sleepy.
Speaker 1: Sarah Appleby might have lived a simple life away from London,
Speaker 1: but she had higher ambitions.
Speaker 3: She was a very smart, capable woman, and she met
Speaker 3: his intellectual aspiration. She was also a Quaker, so she
Speaker 3: met his Quaker aspirations as well. She would help him
Speaker 3: get back into the fold, so to speak.
Speaker 5: She was very respectable.
Speaker 8: She was from a very good quote unquote Quaker family,
Speaker 8: Quaker home.
Speaker 1: I asked Carol Baxter why such a seemingly wonderful woman
Speaker 1: would marry John Tall. I didn't understand why that would happen.
Speaker 1: He's been disowned, he's been sent to a penal colony,
Speaker 1: he's struggling financially. She doesn't know about Sarah number one.
Speaker 1: But what would possess a woman who clearly brings something
Speaker 1: to the table to take this man when there are
Speaker 1: probably other nice Quaker men around.
Speaker 3: You're right, there must have been something for him to
Speaker 3: appeal to that sort of a person. Again, I guess
Speaker 3: he must have had that that mask, because she clearly
Speaker 3: loved him. I mean, we've got letters and things to him,
Speaker 3: and they were clearly devoted to each other.
Speaker 1: So he really did have two sides.
Speaker 3: I guess he was split, you know, very much split
Speaker 3: in terms of who he was the Jekyl and Hyde character,
Speaker 3: the doctor Jekyl is the nice side of him, and
Speaker 3: that was the Doctor Jekyll's side that saw and appealed
Speaker 3: to Sarah Appleby. It was the Mistress Hyde side that
Speaker 3: was the Sarah Hart side.
Speaker 1: Meg Edwards says, there might be a simpler explanation.
Speaker 8: You know, she's been married before, and she has a
Speaker 8: child that certainly aunt an interesting element of Perhaps that's
Speaker 8: why she it wasn't quite so big of a leap
Speaker 8: to marry a Quaker who was out of favor.
Speaker 1: Sarah Appleby also had ambitions when she met John Toll
Speaker 1: in eighteen thirty nine, she was teaching young girls to
Speaker 1: help them become self sufficient women.
Speaker 8: She was setting up a school at the time for
Speaker 8: young girls for women.
Speaker 1: Women's education in the early nineteenth century was not a given.
Speaker 8: I think that's one of the things that attracted her
Speaker 8: to John was that he had similar values of championing
Speaker 8: women's education. Yeah, so she was clearly an interesting time
Speaker 8: in her life setting up the school in berkhams Stead,
Speaker 8: and that's when they met and they got married. He
Speaker 8: was very much flip flopping in and out of the
Speaker 8: Quaker church, in and out of the Quaker favor.
Speaker 1: Sarah Appleby's school in Birkhamsted was a boarding school in
Speaker 1: a day school. Historian Angela Buckley says Appleby was a
Speaker 1: pioneer in the area of women's education.
Speaker 7: Well, nobody was required to be educated until eighteen seventy,
Speaker 7: you know, it wasn't statutory to eighteen seventy anyway. And
Speaker 7: if usually if anybody was educated, it would be boys.
Speaker 7: And the kind of things that will be open for
Speaker 7: girls would be things like industrial schools or places where
Speaker 7: girls you know, who perhaps live a precarious existence, or
Speaker 7: younger married mothers, those kind of girls that not usually
Speaker 7: a boarding school unless it was again for profit.
Speaker 1: And John Tall seemed very supportive of his wife's venture.
Speaker 8: His values were on the surface at least, very in
Speaker 8: line with the Quaker values of philanthropy and giving and education,
Speaker 8: particularly women's education, which is where he came into his
Speaker 8: wife Sarah's life. When she was setting up the school
Speaker 8: in Berkhamsted.
Speaker 1: The Talls lived in a building which still stands. It
Speaker 1: was called the Red House, it's now the Red and
Speaker 1: White House. Hillary and Gerald and Meg took me there
Speaker 1: during our tour of Birkhamsted. So tell me where the
Speaker 1: history this is where Tall?
Speaker 2: Well, yes, this is where Sarah tool had her school,
Speaker 2: and I think he must have decided she would be
Speaker 2: a very good prospect to marry. He ingratiated himself in
Speaker 2: the town. He liked the respect he was getting walking
Speaker 2: about in the.
Speaker 4: Quaker garb have this entire house. But do you know what, Yes,
Speaker 4: I think.
Speaker 2: So, because it was a business.
Speaker 1: I was impressed with its size. Well, this is a
Speaker 1: much bigger house than I thought it would be. I'll
Speaker 1: take some pictures here in the mint. Yes, because this
Speaker 1: is this is very large. I mean children that they
Speaker 1: have when they lived in this house.
Speaker 2: Sarah had her daughter from her previous marriage, and Lisa,
Speaker 2: and then they had two of their own, and then
Speaker 2: they had all the boarders and the day pupils up.
Speaker 1: To twelve years old.
Speaker 2: They were, so it was a big concern.
Speaker 1: Was that a successful business?
Speaker 2: Yes, I believe so.
Speaker 1: It's clear from the size of the Red House that
Speaker 1: Sarah Appleby must have been successful with her school because
Speaker 1: her husband was not especially successful with his import export business.
Speaker 8: What is amazing is that she clearly was the more
Speaker 8: successful one of the two, or she was certainly self
Speaker 8: sufficient to an extent, and under the backdrop of nineteenth
Speaker 8: century England.
Speaker 5: Incredible successful for a woman.
Speaker 1: And he was bringing money to Sarah Hart and their
Speaker 1: kids every six weeks, which continued to be a financial
Speaker 1: strain once Tall married Sarah appleby Sarah Hort and their
Speaker 1: children became a bit more worrisome. But John Tall kept
Speaker 1: more than a few secrets from his wife.
Speaker 3: So she didn't realize they were the financial problems. And
Speaker 3: the financial problems really only started around this time there
Speaker 3: was an economic depression in Australia. Well, most of his
Speaker 3: finances were tied up with land over there and import exporting, and.
Speaker 4: Of course if you've got a drought, which is typical of.
Speaker 3: Our problems, there are issues then with the sheep and
Speaker 3: cattle and making money off them because because they die
Speaker 3: because they haven't got any fodder. For what years he
Speaker 3: started as the early forties continue probably about forty two
Speaker 3: forty three. That was when he really started to have
Speaker 3: financial problems. And he married the second wife in eighteen
Speaker 3: forty one.
Speaker 1: John Toll was sneaky, subtly sneaky. Even with his new wife.
Speaker 4: She didn't know he was struggling financially.
Speaker 3: She made a very good prenup agreement that benefited her
Speaker 3: and her daughter.
Speaker 1: They had prenup agreements.
Speaker 3: Not described in that way. I mean, essentially we're looking
Speaker 3: at the old Dowies sort of situation.
Speaker 4: He agreed in writing.
Speaker 3: To support them blah blah blah, but in fact he
Speaker 3: never actually acted on it.
Speaker 4: He was going to protect his money.
Speaker 1: Tall was having problems with his business. He owed money
Speaker 1: in England, His new wife, Sarah Appleby, was supporting them financially,
Speaker 1: and his mistress and their two children were becoming more
Speaker 1: expensive living in the city. Tall soon decided that Sarah,
Speaker 1: Hart Alfred and Little Sarah needed to move to the
Speaker 1: countryside and away from London where he might be spotted
Speaker 1: by business associates. With his marriage to Sarah Appleby, John
Speaker 1: Tall had a lot to lose. They had children together too,
Speaker 1: and now the financial pressure pressed on him.
Speaker 3: He eventually decided that there were some risks of having
Speaker 3: them in London, and that's when he sent her out
Speaker 3: to Slough initially and then out to Salt Hill, which
Speaker 3: is not far from Slough and Slough, for those who
Speaker 3: don't know, is not far from Windsor Castle.
Speaker 1: Tall rented Sarah and the children a cottage in the
Speaker 1: village of Slough in the district of Salt Hill, just
Speaker 1: like in London. He would occasionally come to visit, even
Speaker 1: after he married Sarah Appleby. I asked Carol Baxter how
Speaker 1: he got away with this for years? Were neighbors not suspicious?
Speaker 3: People didn't know that he was the father because Sarah's
Speaker 3: story was that he was her old master and she
Speaker 3: had married his son, and his son had gone abroad.
Speaker 3: So the son used to send money back to his father,
Speaker 3: the Quaker John Tall, who would then bring it out
Speaker 3: to her every six weeks or so to help her
Speaker 3: support herself and the children. And of course the man
Speaker 3: turned up every time dressed in his Quaker gear.
Speaker 4: And he was an older man.
Speaker 3: I mean, he was about thirty years older than Sarah,
Speaker 3: So there wasn't any Perhaps people had their suspicions, but
Speaker 3: I never even got that idea that they really had
Speaker 3: the suspicions that he might have been the father of
Speaker 3: the children.
Speaker 1: But there was clearly strain. Sarah Hart and John Tall
Speaker 1: argued she knew he had married someone else, He wasn't
Speaker 1: affectionate to the children. In fact, they had no idea
Speaker 1: who he really was.
Speaker 8: From the accounts of what Little Alfred said or was
Speaker 8: over heard saying about John Tool, doesn't sound like they
Speaker 8: were familiar with him at all, doesn't sound like they
Speaker 8: saw him as a father figure or someone.
Speaker 5: He was just someone who dropped in, gave money, and left.
Speaker 1: So this was not his second family. He was not
Speaker 1: a kind father.
Speaker 8: Little Alfred says is overheard saying something along the lines
Speaker 8: of you're a very bad man. You're a very naughty man.
Speaker 8: So I don't think he saw it as you know,
Speaker 8: his family on the side. I think he saw it
Speaker 8: as his mistress and perhaps his two mistakes.
Speaker 1: And John Tall always wore the Quaker garb on those
Speaker 1: visits everywhere. Really, that point is important for later I
Speaker 1: asked historian Estrazala about the clothing, what exactly made Quaker
Speaker 1: clothes unique?
Speaker 6: So in the time of Tall, so the Quaker garb
Speaker 6: is not it's not as specific uniform, it's not as
Speaker 6: distinct as like maybe Orthodox or for Orthodox Jews were
Speaker 6: dressed today. But it would be a dark colors, nothing flashy.
Speaker 6: Again like his definition saying no ribbons nor whatever, like
Speaker 6: it doesn't really mean very much to us.
Speaker 1: No adornments, no.
Speaker 6: Adornments, Yeah right, so just simple, dark, modest.
Speaker 1: In the early eighteen forties, John Tall dressed the part
Speaker 1: of the pious Quaker, which included the clothing. Gerald Fox
Speaker 1: says that for a while, Tall seemed to be heading
Speaker 1: in a positive direction.
Speaker 2: He was on the straight and narrow path.
Speaker 4: He didn't need to do criminal things.
Speaker 5: He didn't need to do fraud or anything.
Speaker 4: It established himself.
Speaker 1: Gerald's granddaughter, Meg Edwards, is a little less generous.
Speaker 8: I think I have a bit of a different opinion
Speaker 8: to my grandpa about the kind of person that he was.
Speaker 5: It's obviously very hard to get.
Speaker 8: An accurate depiction of someone in the nineteenth century, but
Speaker 8: I think he was clearly very driven.
Speaker 5: I think he was very intelligent. I think he was
Speaker 5: an opportunist.
Speaker 8: I don't think he was necessarily as scheming as a
Speaker 8: lot of people would suggest, but I think he definitely
Speaker 8: was seeing things that he wanted to better himself in life.
Speaker 5: Higher positions, more money.
Speaker 1: Men keeping mistresses is obviously nothing new. Historian Angela Buckley
Speaker 1: says it was almost the norm in Victorian England.
Speaker 7: It was very common, particularly for hy and men with
Speaker 7: high positions in society, to have a mistress's and to
Speaker 7: keep them out of the way. So he's behaving fairly typically,
Speaker 7: I would say, from a middle class Victorian gentleman. I
Speaker 7: guess that's how he's styling himself.
Speaker 5: Isn't he.
Speaker 7: They kept her Sarah out the way by moving her
Speaker 7: to Slough because it's quite a distance, but.
Speaker 1: John Tall continued to visit Sarah Hart. They continued to
Speaker 1: have their affair. He controlled everything, including her name. Carol
Speaker 1: Baxter says that Sarah Hart wasn't her real name. So
Speaker 1: back to this is Sarah Lawrence, right, do you say
Speaker 1: Lawrence or Heart or do you go back and forth.
Speaker 3: Or look, I just call it Sarah Hart. Her initial
Speaker 3: name was Lawrence, and then her mother married a handler,
Speaker 3: so she became a headler and the Heart name was
Speaker 3: a name attached by John Tall to hide her true identity.
Speaker 1: John Tall clearly cared mostly about himself, and it seems
Speaker 1: that Sarah Hart wanted more from him. But it wasn't
Speaker 1: his love she was demanding. It was his money. And
Speaker 1: John Tall was very angry.
Speaker 8: I think he saw Sarah as increasingly inconvenient to him.
Speaker 1: It's not just the anger that's concerning Meg. Edwards says
Speaker 1: Tall might have felt like he was above the law
Speaker 1: for much of his life.
Speaker 5: He was probably quite arrogant, thought he was above the law.
Speaker 8: Those fourteen years in Australia or those that he was
Speaker 8: sentenced to anyway, didn't do much to dissuade him from
Speaker 8: committing further crimes.
Speaker 1: And that put the people closest to him in a
Speaker 1: lot of danger. On the next episode of tenfold more
Speaker 1: Wicked on exactly right.
Speaker 3: Suddenly Sarah had gone from being a pawn to being
Speaker 3: almost a queen.
Speaker 4: She had started to have a voice, and she made.
Speaker 3: That voice clear in her decision to ask him for money,
Speaker 3: and that was when she became a threat. So that
Speaker 3: was when everything started to unravel.
Speaker 8: Basically, he gets onto a train from Puttington Station and
Speaker 8: goes to Salt Hill.
Speaker 3: Gets off the train and he walks to Sarah's place.
Speaker 3: At Salt Hill, people see him. It's January, so yes,
Speaker 3: it's dark, but there are lights around the railway station.
Speaker 4: He is distinctive. He's seen. He heads to Sarah's place.
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