Tuck, William Henry

  • DICTIONARY OF CANADIAN BIOGRAPHY ARTICLE: D. G. Bell, “TUCK, WILLIAM HENRY,” in Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 14, University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003–. https://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/tuck_william_henry_14E.html
  • DCB profile:
    • Lawyer and judge; b. 27 Feb. 1831 in Indiantown (Saint John), son of Moses Tuck and Elizabeth Travis; m. 1 Dec. 1857 Sarah Plummer Favor (d. 1917) in Eastport, Maine, and they had four sons and two daughters; d. 8 April 1913 in Saint John.
    • Harry Tuck was reared in a modest Saint John neighbourhood specializing in the transshipment of goods around and timber through the Reversing Falls. Here the juvenile Tuck assisted his father in navigating great log rafts downstream. Four years of secondary schooling at Sackville’s Wesleyan Academy (1844–48) preceded entry as a student into the law chambers of fellow Methodist Lemuel Allan Wilmot of Fredericton, the province’s attorney general. At Wilmot’s elevation to the bench, in 1851, Tuck returned to Saint John to complete his articling with William Jack. Admitted as an attorney in 1853, he was called to the bar on 11 Oct. 1855.
    • As was the case with other judicial appointees in post-confederation New Brunswick, Tuck’s path to the bench lay through partisan politics. Unusually, however, he never held elective office; he was a back-room manipulator exclusively. A lifelong advocate of the “liberal, democratic views” of the reformers (Smashers) of his political youth, by 1860 Tuck was already one of Samuel Leonard Tilley’s key political organizers in Saint John. He clung to Tilley throughout the vicissitudes of the confederation struggle and, though denied a seat on the newly created county court in 1867, he was made a qc, solicitor of the provincial railway, and clerk of the crown, all on the same day that year. The last office, held until 1883, brought him fame as prosecutor of the most sensational criminal cases of the day. In 1874 the province made him recorder (city solicitor) of Saint John, a position he retained until appointed to the bench.
  • Grandson of United Empire Loyalist listed in Loyalist Directory: https://uelac.ca/loyalist-directory/detail/?wpda_search_column_id=8501
  • Find a Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/252024126/william-henry-tuck