Benjamin Tucker (18 January 1762 – 11 December 1829) was an English civil servant. He served in the
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy (RN) is the naval warfare force of the United Kingdom. It is a component of His Majesty's Naval Service, and its officers hold their commissions from the King of the United Kingdom, King. Although warships were used by Kingdom ...
as a
purser
A purser is the person on a ship principally responsible for the handling of money on board. On modern merchant ships, the purser is the officer responsible for all administration (including the ship's cargo and passenger manifests) and supply. ...
from 1792 to 1798 and was secretary to the senior naval officer
John Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent
John Jervis, 1st Earl of St Vincent ( ; 9 January 1735 – 13 March 1823) was a British Royal Navy admiral and politician. He served throughout the latter half of the 18th century and into the 19th, and was an active commander during the Seven ...
, whom he served under for three more years, until St Vincent was made
First Lord of the Admiralty
First Lord of the Admiralty, or formally the Office of the First Lord of the Admiralty, was the title of the political head of the English and later British Royal Navy. He was the government's senior adviser on all naval affairs, responsible f ...
in 1801; Tucker became his
private secretary in 1802 and then briefly served as
Second Secretary
Diplomatic rank is a system of professional and social rank used in the world of diplomacy and international relations. A diplomat's rank determines many ceremonial details, such as the order of precedence at official processions, table seating ...
(i.e.
Permanent Secretary
A permanent secretary is the most senior Civil Service (United Kingdom), civil servant of a department or Ministry (government department), ministry charged with running the department or ministry's day-to-day activities. Permanent secretaries are ...
) at the
Admiralty in 1804.
Tucker, who has been characterised as "an aggressive
Whig", was also appointed by St Vincent to a seat on the Navy Board in November 1801.
He was Second Secretary again from 1806 to 1807. From 1810, he was Surveyor-General of
Duchy of Cornwall
A duchy, also called a dukedom, is a country, territory, fief, or domain ruled by a duke or duchess, a ruler hierarchically second to the king or queen in Western European tradition.
There once existed an important difference between "sovereign ...
.
After replacing
George Purvis as the earl's agent and secretary, Tucker became involved in a dispute with
Lord Nelson
Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson, 1st Duke of Bronte ( – 21 October 1805) was a Royal Navy officer whose leadership, grasp of strategy and unconventional tactics brought about a number of decisive British naval victories during the French ...
who sought to reclaim a share of Spanish treasure worth an estimated £14,000.
Personal life and legacy
His brother Joseph Tucker was the master shipwright of
Plymouth Dockyard
His Majesty's Naval Base, Devonport (HMNB Devonport) is one of three operating bases in the United Kingdom for the Royal Navy (the others being HMNB Clyde and HMNB Portsmouth) and is the sole nuclear repair and refuelling facility for the Roya ...
.
His son Jedediah published his father's ''Memoirs of Admiral the Rt Hon. the Earl of St Vincent'' in 1844; his other son,
John Jervis became an admiral in the navy.
[J. K. Laughton, revised by Roger Morriss]
"Tucker, Benjamin"
''The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
''The'' is a grammatical Article (grammar), article in English language, English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the ...
'' (online ed., Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the publishing house of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world. Its first book was printed in Oxford in 1478, with the Press officially granted the legal right to print books ...
, 2008). Retrieved 12 August 2021.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tucker, Benjamin
1762 births
1829 deaths
19th-century British civil servants