TUCKER, WILLIAM (1589?–1640?), colonist, born in England about 1589, seems to have gone out to Virginia in 1610 in the Mary and James (see Neill, op. cit.) He was one of the first subscribers to the Virginia Company, and in 1617 sent over two men in his service to the colony, himself following in 1618. He apparently devoted himself to trading voyages as well as to planting, and probably from this obtained the title 'Captain' by which reference is generally made to him. To judge from instructions which he left on one of his visits to England, he was a shrewd and hard man of business (Cal. State Papers. Colonial, 1574-1660, p. 151). He resided at Kiccowtan (afterwards Elizabeth City), where he had an estate of eight hundred acres and a large establishment, and on 30 July 1619 he was elected member for that city to the first assembly of Virginia. He took a leading part in the fighting arising out of the massacre in the colony by the Indians in 1622. Before 1623 he had become a member of the council of Virginia, and apparently was reappointed in subsequent years till his death. In 1630, and again in 1632 and 1633, he made voyages to England. On the last of these occasions he made an application to the privy council for a renewal of the ancient charter of Virginia, and for restraint of the Dutch from the trade. He seems to have died in England, probably before 1640. He married, before 1618, Mary, daughter of Robert Thompson of Watton, Hertfordshire, who was aunt to the first Baron Haversham.
[Brown's Genesis of the United States, ii. 1 034; Neill's Virginia Carolorum, p. 40; Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, 1574-1660.]
TUCKEY, JAMES KINGSTON (1776–1816), commander in the navy and explorer, youngest son of Thomas Tuckey of Greenhill, near Mallow, co. Cork, by Elizabeth, daughter of the Rev. James Kingston of Donoughmore,[1] was born in August 1776. His parents died in his infancy, and he was brought up by his maternal grandmother. After a voyage to the West Indies in a merchant ship, he was in 1793, by the influence of his kinsman, Captain Francis John Hartwell, afterwards commissioner of the navy, placed on board the Suffolk, going out to the East Indies with the broad pennant of Commodore Peter Rainier [q. v.], and in her he was present at the reduction of Trincomalee in August 1795, and of Amboyna, where he was wounded in the left arm by a fragment of a shell. He was afterwards put in command of a prize brig, and ordered to cruise off the island, to prevent a threatened insurrection of the natives. By the bursting of a gun his right arm was broken. He had no surgeon, and set it himself. It had to be broken again by the surgeon of the Suffolk, with the result that he never quite recovered its use. In January 1798 he assisted in suppressing a serious mutiny on board the Suffolk, and Rainier, in approving his conduct, gave him an acting order as lieutenant, and appointed him to the Fox frigate. Being at Madras in February 1799, when the Sibylle was sailing to look out for the French frigate Forte [see Cooke, Edward, 1770?-1799], Tuckey, with a party of seamen from the Fox, volunteered for service in her, and took part in capturing the Forte a few days later. He was confirmed in the rank of lieutenant on 6 Oct. 1800. He rejoined the Fox in the Red Sea, and, after returning to Bombay, was again in the Red Sea in the end of 1800. He suffered much from the heat, and laid the foundations of 'a hepatic derangement,' from which he suffered all the rest of his life. He was invalided to India, and was sent home with despatches.
In 1802 he was appointed first lieutenant of the Calcutta, going out to New South Wales to establish a colony at Port Phillip. Tuckey remained in the Calcutta the whole time, and made a complete survey of the harbour of Port Phillip and a careful examination of the adjacent coast and country. On his return to England in the autumn of 1804 he published 'The Account of a Voyage to establish a Colony at Port Phillip in Bass's Strait … in the years 1802, 1803-4' (1805, 8vo). The dedication to Sir Francis Hartwell is dated 'Portsmouth, 29 October 1804.' The Calcutta was then sent out to St. Helena to convoy the homeward-bound East Indiaman. On the way home she was met by the Rochefort squadron and was captured. Her captain, Woodriff, was exchanged some eighteen months later; but for Tuckey no exchange was permitted, and he was detained a prisoner in France, mostly at Verdun, till the peace of 1814. During this time he wrote a comprehensive work, 'Maritime Geography and Statistics,' which was published on his return to England (1815, 4 vols. 8vo). He was promoted to the rank of commander on 27 Aug. 1814. After the peace of 1815 the government determined to send out an expedition to endeavour to solve the problem of the Congo. Many officers thrown out of employment by the peace applied for the command, which was conferred on Tuckey, mainly, it would seem, in recognition of his geographical studies as shown in the 'Maritime Geography.' It was indeed objected that his
