Author: Tucker, William
Biography:
TUCKER, William (1731-1814: “Memoir”)
He was born at Chard, Somerset, on 27 Mar. 1731, the eldest child of humble parents, Charles Tucker and his wife Grace Trott, who had married the previous year. He received a very elementary education but read widely. He was apprenticed but his first trade is not known. On 2 Nov. 1751 he went to London, “where he went on sinning and repenting, reforming and revolting by turns,” but went to hear Whitefield and was moved to change his ways. Returning to Chard, “he grew daily acquainted with the plague of his own heart, the spirituality of God’s law, and the unsearchable riches of gospel grace” (“Memoir,” iv). He married Rebecca Bailey (1728-1810) on 26 Apr. 1759, at Chard. They had a son and a daughter. In Nov. 1764 he set up as a cutler and ironmonger and continued the trade for thirty-seven years. He was re-baptised on 7 Jul. 1765. In Jan. 1772 he began to contribute poems to the Gospel Magazine edited by Augustus Toplady and John Ryland, who encouraged him. He contributed his letters on Predestination from July 1772 until May 1780. These were later published as Predestination Calmly Considered from Principles of Reason (1798), with the posthumous third edition of 1821 containing a “Memoir.” He also began to contribute to the Baptist Magazineand was a supporter of the Baptist Mission in India. In old age he defended congregational Calvinism in Arminianism Dissected; or, the Divine Prerogatives Asserted, and Calvinisim Vindicated (1810). He died on 2 Feb. 1814 at Chard, where he was buried in the Baptist burial ground. (“Memoir” prefixed to Predestination Calmly Considered [3rd edn. 1821], iii-xii; John Gadsby, Memoirs of the Principal Hymn-Writers . . . [4th edn.1870], 130; ancestry.co.uk 18 Jul. 2022; findmypast.co.uk 18 Jul. 2022) AA
Other Names:
- W. Tucker