John Tull

Level 110

Ron Garbutt on 13th January 2023

Year of birth. Transcript of trial lists John's age as 26 (in April 1797) Therefore, he was born in abt. 1771.

Level 110

Ron Garbutt on 12th January 2023

Trial Old Bailey Proceedings Online (www.oldbaileyonline.org, version 8.0, 12 January 2023), April 1797, trial of JOHN TULL (t17970426-8). JOHN TULL, Violent Theft > highway robbery, 26th April 1797. 287. JOHN TULL was indicted for that he, on the 29th of March , in the King's highway, in and upon George Lee , did make an assault, putting him in fear, and feloniously taking from his person, ten pair of trowsers, value 52s. the property of Parmenus Higgins , and a linen bag, value 2d. the property of Edward Lee . GEORGE LEE - Q.How old are you, my boy ? - A.Going in my thirteenth year. Q. Do you know what it is to take an oath? - A. Yes; I have taken my oath four times(sworn.) I am son of Edward Lee, a taylor ; I was going to Mr. Higgin's with some property of his, between seven and eight in the evening; as I was going along Lincoln's-inn-fields, there were four men followed me from Hemlock-court; only one man stopped me, and shoved me down, I said nothing to him, and he pulled the bundle from me, the three men turned down Duke-street, and this gentleman also, (pointing to the prisoner), and I called out, stop thief; it was a dark, blustering night; he staid about a minute, he began swearing, and I thought it was better to let the bundle go; I can swear to the prisoner, it was done under a lamp, I followed him as well as I could, I never lost sight of him. Q. Did you see him drop the things? - A. Yes, I did, about five or six yards before me. Q.Who stopped him? - A. John Leach . JOHN LEACH sworn. - I stopped the prisoner between seven and eight o'clock, the bottom of Lincoln's-inn-fields; I was going on my master's business, I heard a boy cry out, I thought somebody had been beating him, then I discovered him crying out, stop thief, and this man passed me with the bundle, I went after him as fast as I could, and about three yards distance from him, I saw him drop the bundle, and he turned out of the main road towards the iron pales; I laid hold of him, and he struck me on the face; I took him by the arms and gave him a shake, and secured him. (The things produced). Q. Are these the things you picked up? - A. Yes. Q.(To Lee.) You cannot swear to these things yourself? - A. Yes; those were the things taken from me. PARMENUS HIGGINS sworn. - Those things are your property? - A. They are my property. EDWARD LEE sworn. - I am the father of the boy; I sent him on the 29th of March, to Mr. Higgins; those are the things he brought back to me. Prisoner's defence. I was coming through Lincoln's-inn-fields, I was rather in liquor, the man that took me, said, I had robbed the boy, I never saw the boy in my life before; I have no witness, I did not think I should be tried to day. GUILTY Death . (Aged 26.) Tried by the first Middlesex Jury, before Mr. Baron HOTHAM. https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/print.jsp?div=t17970426-8

Level 2

Graeme Bainbridge on 12th January 2023

Born 1754

Level 72

Robin Sharkey on 16th January 2018

JOHN TULL was sent to NSW for 7 years for robbery. He was transported on “Hillsborough” arriving Sydney 29 July 1799. His trial was at the Old Bailey (Justice Hall, Middlesex Assizes) on 26 April 1797. There was no evidence reported as to what his occupation was. 12 year old George Lee said that three men had followed him as he went through Lincoln’s–Inn-Fields when he was carrying a parcel of clothing from his father, a taylor, to a customer, Mr Higgins. His evidence was a bit unclear as to whether Tull was one of the four men or not, but Tull was seen as the person who picked up the parcel when it was knocked out of the boy’s hands and made off with it. He was sent to the ‘Lyon’ hulk at Portsmouth. Then he was sent to the “Hillsborough” on 22 Nov 1798. Tull arrived in Sydney on the “Hillsborough” on 29 July 1799. LIFE IN NSW John Tull - probably very quickly – became the school teacher at the relatively new ‘public’ school in Parramatta. This meant it would teach all comers. His 1817 death notice stated that he had been teaching for nearly twenty years (it would have been 18 years if he’d started straight away on arrival in July 1799). So he may have been given a Ticket of Leave quickly. Most convict school teachers in NSW had not been schoolteachers before they arrived. But they had education of some kind. No evidence found of John Tull’s working life in England. Many of the online accessible sources about early teaching in the Colony say that the first teacher at the public school in Parramatta was John Tull and that the school opened in 1797. (e.g. The Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate 22 Nov 1899 “The First School in Parramatta” at p 1). Statements by researchers (e.g. a Mr A. Halloran in 1933, President of the Royal Australian Historical Society, reported in SMH 2 Nov 1933 p.10 “Life in the Early Days”, p.10) perpetuate the view that Tull was the first school master from 1797 or 1796. We can see that something is not right in these statements because Tull did not arrive until two years later, in 1799. EVIDENCE RE: “ first teacher at Parramatta”. So there may have been other teachers at Parramatta prior to Tull's 1799 arrival in NSW who have been overlooked. It would appear (2ndry research) that John Marsden was behind the opening of the school, that he had arranged for the teacher’s salary to be paid by the ‘Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge’. Apart from the incorrect statement about Tull being the first schoolmaster in 1796, the following details may be correct: The Cumberland Argus and Fruitgrowers Advocate 22 Nov 1899 p 1: “The First School in Parramatta” "In August, 1796, Governor Hunter wrote to the Secretary of State that a public school for the care and education of the young was much wanted, at Parramatta as well as at Sydney. He also strongly urged the Reverend Samuel Marsden to found a school in Parramatta, and in the month of November, 1796, the first school was established in a building, near the present site of St John's Church. The first schoolmaster was John Tull who received the munificent salary of £10 per annum from the Venerable Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, whose aid Chaplain Johnson had solicited in 1792 by lamentable reports of the neglected condition of the children of the colony….” A more modern, researched report by Geoffrey Burkhardt of the Australian National Museum of Education lists all teachers known to be teaching before 1810. This lists John Tull starting from 1799, at Parramatta. It does not list a teacher in Parramatta before then, other than Thomas Taber arrived 1796 teaching at both Sydney & Parramatta from 1797-1824 but Taber’s entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography reports there were records of him teaching immediately in Sydney and only being in Parramatta from 1802-1805. http://anme.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/ANME_First_Teachers.pdf Burkhardt also reports the research of Alan Barcan “A Short History of Education in New South Wales” Martindale Press, Sydney, 1965, p.25 who says that by 1797 the colony had six schools, one being at Parramatta (and 3 n Sydney and 2 on Norfolk Island). SITE of THE SCHOOL Tull’s school was reported in 1935 as having been in Church Street, between George and Macquarie Streets, "the building that was used as a school by John Tull …” and that then, in 1935, this same building was the one known as the old Court House. SOURCE: James Jervis, “The Development of Settlement in the Town of Parramatta”, Parramatta Historical Society, Journal and Proceedings, 1935. Repeated online by Parramatta Heritage Society “Old Church Street” Part 2 __________ OTHER PARRAMATTA SCHOOLS The school that was open to the public where Tull was the school master had some competition after a few years. (1) A school was kept in Parramatta Church. It was a “public” school. Mr Crook was a preacher and ex-Missionary with the London Mission Society (but was not ordained) and his name appears in the St John's Church records as officiating minister on many occasions from 1804. In 1804 the following notice appeared: Syd Gazette 19 August 1804 page 1 “MR. Crook has resumed the charge of the Public School kept in Parramatta Church; and wishing to have a few Young Gentlemen to Board and Lodge with him, he has taken a House where he can accommodate them…” Burkhardt’s list of early teachers (see above) records Crook as a teacher at Parramatta from 1803. Crook’s entry in the Australian Dictionary of Biography reports he arrived in Sydney in November 1803 and “almost immediately” Rev Marsden engaged him to open a school in the church at Parramatta. So Crook may have done so, then stopped running it for a short time in 1804, then started up again as per above newspaper notice. In 1808 he opened an Academy in Sydney township (per newspaper advertisements). (2) A PUBLIC Charity School established under Governor Macquarie in 1810 and run by John Eyre. Eyre was a missionary who fled the Tahiti rebellion and arrived in Sydney in March 1810. He was encouraged by the newly arrived Governor Macquarie and Rev Marsden to commence a charity school. (Macquarie had announced on 24 Feb 1810 his intention to establish public charity schools in the colony). According to Mr Jervis of the Parramatta Historical Society (see above) Eyre’s school was on the corner of Church and Macquarie Street and it was in the house in which the Rev. S. Marsden lived. Whether this was its original 1810 location is not specified. Newspaper stories record it as having been in the church. __________ JOHN TULL’s LIFE – PARRAMATTA SCHOOLMASTER In the 1806 Muster he was reported as a School Master at Parramatta. MARRIAGE - On 7 July 1808 he married Dorothy Sophia Marchant, a widow, who had come free to NSW to work as a school teacher. They never had any children. Based on the 1828 Census information where she self-reported as being 66 yrs old then, Dorothy would have been 46 years old on her marriage to John Tull. Their marriage was “by order of Anthony Fenn Kemp, acting Judge Advocate” Also “by order of the Lt Governor Foveaux”, so there must have been something unusual about one of them. Dorothy/Sophia had obtained the Secretary’s permission in Sept 1806 to come to NSW as a widow while she was then named Mrs Chapman. The Secretary’s letter to the NSW Governor had stated that respectable women such as Dorothy were to be encouraged to NSW and she was to be given a female Government Servant until she was established in NSW, and a grant of land of 50 acres. But she married before she embarked and her new husband (Mr Tanfield Marchant) also was given approval to go to NSW (see below). They arrived in July 1807 on the “Duke of Portland”. She appears to have been called by her second name “Sophia” as this appears on some records. It is very likely that she was quickly employed as a teacher after arrival and was living at Parramatta. Her husband, Marchant, then appears to have died within six months of arrival. A person surnamed “Merchant”, recorded as aged 40, was buried at St John’s Parramatta on 19th February 1808. It is very likely that this was Sophia’s husband, Tanfield Marchant, and shows that they were already living in Parramatta at least by then. Being a widow again, she was then enabled to marry once more - she did so, five months after Marchant's death, to John TULL. There were two schools at Parramatta by the time Dorothy/Sophia arrived. The first one established was the school in which John Tull taught. The other was the school established in St John’s Church in 1804 by Mr William Pascoe Crook – see above. It is not clear from researches here which school Dorothy Sophia may have been teaching in between her arrival and her marriage to Tull a year later. The marriage witnesses were James Wright and Letitia Wright (an ex-convict well established in Parramatta as a baker, who also had a quarter-acre garden and a provisions store). It’s likely Wright and Letitia sent their three (surviving) children born between 1792 and 1799 to John Tull’s school. _______ One of John Tull’s school pupils is supposed to have been John Batman, who was born in 1901 at Parramatta to John Bateman, TL and his wife Mary, his three NSW born brothers presumably also attending the school – whether or not his older brother and sister, already born in London, did so or not has not been researched here. In 1814 his government servant was Francisco Joseph, convict per “Eliza”. In 1817 John Tull died - Tues 10th June. His death was reported in the Sydney Gazette of Sat 14th June 1817 p.2: “Died on Tuesday morning last, at Parramatta, Mr John Tull, schoolmaster, the duties of which avocation he had, for nearly twenty years in this colony, performed with an assiduity less creditable to himself than beneficial to the public who will, we are conscious, join feelingly in the regret which falls to the portion of his afflicted Widow.” The afflicted widow went on to marry her fourth husband two years later when she was about 57 yrs old – new hubby Richard Read was only 38. In the 1828 Census there was no mention of Richard Read, and Dorothy “Tull” was recorded as aged 66, Protestant, living at Parramatta, a schoolteacher and came free per the ‘Duke of Portland’ 1807. For Dorothy Sophia's fascinating serial monogamy of in NSW, see below. _______________________________________ MRS DOROTHY SOPHIA TULL, formerly Marchant, formerly Chapman, nee (?). Dorothy was a much-married woman. 1. She had obtained official approval from the Colonial Secretary (letter of Mr Windham) writing to the Governor of NSW (Bligh) on 18 September 1806 allowing her to proceed to NSW to teach school, as a widow already – then called Mrs Dorothy CHAPMAN. 2. She married a Mr Tanfield MARCHANT (B 1765, so just a couple of years younger than her) between the 18 Sept 1806 and the 6th December 1806 when a letter was written advising that her new husband, Mr Marchant, had by then also been given permission by Mr Windham to settle in NSW. Marriage: 6 October 1806: St Mary’s church, Mary-le-Bone Rd Dorothy Chapman & Tanfield Marchant. Arrival in NSW: per Duke of Portland in July 1807. 3. In July 1808 Mrs Dorothy Sophia “Merchant” is on a list of land grants made by Acting Governor Johnston (following the deposing of Bligh), receiving 60 acres. This grant was made pursuant to the order from Downing Street introducing her to the Governor which also directed that a land grant of 50 acres should be made up for her. A separate document “Index to Registers of Land Grants and Leases” at image 28 of 1190 records Dorothy Sophia's land grant of 60 acres being at Minto. This land grant must have become known to one and all as “John Tull’s Farm” (i.e. the name of her next husband, the Parramatta school teacher) because in the Sydney Gazette of 30 July 1848 , out in the District of Minto, CHARLES THROSBY ESQ was cautioning all Person against trespassing (including stock) on the farm of JOHN TULL Tanfield Marchant most probably died in NSW six months after arrival. Registered in St John’s Parramatta burials is a person listed with surname only ‘Merchant” “age 40” of the Parish of St. John’s who was buried February 19th, 1808 by Wm Pascoe Crook. (Image 566 of 644). No other person appears to fit the name "merchant" or "Marchant", and the age is right. 4. A few months later, Dorothy married John Hull , the Parramatta school teacher (and ex-convict). July 1808. 5. After John Hull died in 1817, she next married, as “Dorothy Sophia Tull” to Richard Read on 1st September, 1819 at St John’s Parramatta. Read was aged 38 and still a Prisoner, per the Earl St Vincent in 1818. The marriage witnesses were James Wood and Francis Montgomery. Richard Read was a 7 year prisoner, having been tried in Queens County, Ireland (born in Armagh) in March 1818. Dorothy petitioned on Richard’s behalf in September 1819 for his emancipation – whether this worked or not, he recorded himself as District Constable when he and Dorothy went through a marriage ceremony again, this time in the Catholic Church on 17 March 1828 (Read was Irish, Catholic, from Armagh). Significantly (?) It was St Patrick’s Day. In 1822 Richard Read was a Gov Servant and in Nov he was a gov servant employed in the Magazines Department when he petitioned himself for a Ticket of Leave. In January 1823 he was on a list of persons who had obtained a Tof L. In 1825 though, Read was a labourer at Newcastle and Dorothy Tull was recorded in the Musters as “housekeeper” at Parramatta. Dorothy received a land grant around this time for an allotment at 6 Church Street, Parramatta which also bounded no 51 Phillip Street, Parramatta. (Sydney Gazette) In 1824 (29 April) Dorothy, as “Sophia Tull” received a 100 acre land grant at Argyll, on the Goulburn Plains (ref no 33 page 8). However she must have transferred it, because in 1835 the Land Commissioners were confirming the deeds to the Sophia Tull Land Grant as being for Hugh Kelly (Syd Gaz 6 Feb 1836 p.4) In the 1828 Census she was recorded as schoolteacher at Parramatta and was her own household, being aged 66 and Protestant per “Duke of Portland” 1807. Read was not recorded with her. Richard Read had left NSW, and had left Dorothy. This is known from the convict indent of the "Royal Admiral" that arrived on 22 January 1835. Richard Read arrived on it, again in NSW, transported for the second time as a convict, for a 7 year period. He was aged 56 and had stolen a watch , tried at Monaghan, Ireland. He admitted to the previous 7 yr conviction for which he was transported on ‘Earl St Vincent’ in 1818. He admitted to ‘going home’ on French frigate ‘Thetis’ in 1826 when he was then Free by Servitude. He had a son living in NSW who had also been transported, Joseph Reed, who was then (1835) free at Newcastle. He also reported that he had a sister named Rose Grant who had been transported 25 years before and then [in 1835] kept a public house in Sydney. [See separate Richard Reed entry under Earl St Vincent ship]. 6. Having been abandoned by Richard Read in 1826, Dorothy married again in 1829, although she was NOT a widow. Richard had simply left her. And as explained above, he was alive and kicking and back in NSW as a convict again in 1835 – a fact that would cause her no end of trouble a few years later. However, on she went and married in 1829 as Dorothy Sophia Tull, at St John’s Parramatta again, to “William Withings WITHINGTON” or WITHERINGTON or WEATHERINGTON or WETHERINGTON (born 1787), who arrived per “Hebe” in 1820. She probably wanted to erase the marriage to Read by calling herself Tull. Withington was also a much younger man – she was then 67 and he was about 42 yrs. He could not even sign his name and he was a Catholic. They were married with the consent of the Governor (Why? perhaps because Reid was not dead but had left the colony??). John & Rosetta Beal of Parramatta were the witnesses. Perhaps her property appealed to him, perhaps he thought she would not live too long ... But eleven years later, in 1841, she was still alive and kicking! By 1841 William Willing WITHINGTON was well aware of Richard Read's existence, if he hadn't been when he married Dorothy. He put an advertisement in the Sydney Gazette on 26 June 1841 , p.3 cautioning the public not to give credit to the woman who "Calls herself" Dorothy Sophia Withington, her lawful name being Read". He was not going to be responsible for her debts "her lawful husband, Richard Read, being in Sydney." Oh dear. In 1842 Withington brought an action of bigamy against “Dorothy Tull”. [see SMH 4 Feb 1842 p 2]. Perhaps he was tired of her as an old woman (she was then aged about 80 years !! and he was only 55) and had already traded her in for a new model. But it did appear to be true that she was a bigamist. Did he win his action in bigamy? What happened to Dorothy Sophia? She appears no more in newspapers and her death record has not been found in the indexes to the NSWBDM records. ANd Withington? He remarried in 1853 to Jane Hutchinson, he was listed in the NSW BDM index as as William “Withington” and also as WITHERINGTON. William Withington had a son called Enoch Withington who died Feb 1862 aged 52. “Son of Mr William Withington, Francis St, Glebe. This means Enoch was born 1810 – probably in England?? When William died at 86 yrs, Enoch would have been 63 years. This is feasible. In 1873 William Withington died, still of Francis St Glebe. (SMH 17 may 1873, p. 9). The death notice stated he had been church warden at St Barnabas' church, Glebe.