James Hingston Tuckey

Who was James Hingston Tuckey?

James Hingston Tuckey was an Irish-born British explorer and a captain in the Royal Navy. Some sources mistakenly refer to him as James Kingston Tuckey.

Tuckey was born at Greenhill, near Mallow, August 1776. He went to sea at an early age, and in 1793 was received into the navy. From the first he saw a good deal of active service, and he was more than once wounded. He was engaged in expeditions to the Red Sea, and in 1802 he helped expand the British colony of New South Wales in Australia as first-lieutenant of the Calcutta. Amongst other services, he made a survey of Port Phillip District. On his return to England he published an Account of the Voyage to establish a Colony at Port Phillip. The Calcutta was captured by the French on a voyage from St. Helena in 1805, and Lieutenant Tuckey suffered an imprisonment of nearly nine years in France, during which time he married Miss Margaret Stuart, a fellow prisoner, and prepared a work on Maritime Geography and Statistics, published after his release.

In 1814 he was promoted to the rank of commander, and in February 1816 he sailed to explore the River Congo in the schooner Congo, accompanied by the stores ship Dorothy.