Author: Tucker, Henry St. George
Biography:
TUCKER, Henry St. George (1771/2-1851: ODNB)
Tucker was a career civil servant, mainly in the employ of the East India Company, in which he rose from midshipman on the voyage out at the age of 15 to company director (from 1826) and chairman (1834, 1847). He was born on St. George’s Island, Bermuda, on 15 Feb. 1771/2—both dates by convention being given to reflect the transition from the Old Style calendar in which the year began on 25 Mar. to the New starting on 1 Jan. His parents were Frances Bruere (1749-1813), the daughter of the Governor of Bermuda, and Henry Tucker (1742-1802), President of the Council of the Bermudas, who had married in 1764. He was sent to school in England in 1781 and then in 1786 left for Calcutta, where he held various clerical positions, including private secretary to Sir William Jones, q.v. He showed a gift for finance, developed plans for a national bank, and served as accountant-general from 1801. While in India he was convicted in Dec. 1806 of “intent to rape” and was imprisoned for six months; in his defence he declared that he had understood the attraction to be mutual. On leave for a year in Britain in 1811, he married Jane (or Janet) Boswell (1789-1869), the daughter of a Writer to the Signet, in Edinburgh on 30 Sept. They went on to have at least nine children, two born in India and one in 1816 on the voyage back. They settled in Upper Portland Place, Marylebone, London, where the census of 1841 shows them living with six of their children aged between 8 and 26 and six servants; in 1851 there were four unmarried daughters, three grandchildren, and six different servants. The two tragedies that appeared together under Tucker’s name in 1835 were, as he explains in prefatory matter, originally written for relaxation “from office” and had been revised for publication. They were designed to inculcate, respectively, patriotism (Harold, dedicated to the Duke of Wellington) and an awareness of the danger of excessive feeling (Camoens). Tucker died at his London home on 14 June 1851, “fondly loved and deeply lamented,” and was buried on 24 June not at Kensal Green but at St. Paulinus, Crayford, Bexley. (ODNB 11 Sept. 2024; ancestry.com 11 Sept. 2024; findmypast.com 11 Sept. 2024; Morning Post 17 June 1851) HJ
Other Names:
- H. St. G. Tucker