Frederick Booth-Tucker

Commissioner Frederick St. George de Lautour Booth-Tucker, (21 March 1853 – 17 July 1929) was a senior Salvation Army officer of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and the son-in-law of Willam and Catherine Booth, the Army's founders.

Early life
Born in Monghyr in India, the son of William Thornhill Tucker, a Deputy Commissioner in the Indian Civil Service and author of an English-Persian dictionary, 'Fred' Tucker was five years old when the Indian Mutiny broke out. He was educated at Cheltenham College from 1866 until 1873, leaving when he was 20 years old. During his time at the college he was known as a keen scholar and athlete. He joined the Indian Civil Service as an Assistant Commissioner in 1874, being posted to Amritsar, Simla and later to Dharamsala, where in addition to being Assistant Commissioner he was also Assistant Magistrate. In 1875, he was converted during the Moody and Sankey campaigns in London. He married Louisa Mary Bode, eighteen years his senior, in 1877 at Amritsar in India, she having travelled out from her home on the Isle of Wight to join him.

The Salvation Army


Against the wishes of his wife and parents, Tucker joined The Salvation Army in 1881 while on leave in England from the Indian Civil Service and came to work in the Army's legal department at International Headquarters in London. He was posted to the Camberwell Corps in July 1882.

On 19 September 1882 Major Tucker arrived in Bombay accompanied by three officers intending to spread the teachings of The Salvation Army in India. Although thousands attended the meetings, most of Tucker's early converts were already Christians.

Tucker saw the Indian caste system as his main obstacle, and so he decided to work among India's sixty million outcasts. He and his fellow Salvationists adopted the way of life of the outcasts. Their Salvation Army uniforms were replaced with the saffron robes of the Indian fakir, and they assumed Indian names, Tucker being known as "Fakir Singh", meaning the "Lion of God".

Tucker's preaching of equality and salvation proved popular with the members of outcast society, many of whom were converted. Following this success in India, Tucker was promoted to the rank of Commissioner. His first wife, Louisa Tucker, died in India on 27 February 1887 during a cholera epidemic, and on 10 April 1888 he married Emma Booth, the daughter of William and Catherine Booth at Clapton Congress Hall. As was the usual practice in the Booth family at that time, Tucker added his wife's maiden name to his own, becoming Booth-Tucker. The couple had nine children, Frederick Kristodas (who attended Monkton Combe School in Somerset in 1906-07), Catherine Motee, Lucy Mina, Herbert, John and Muriel; three others, William, Evangeline and Bramwell Tancred died in infancy.,

His new wife also became ill during the time of their stay in India and so in 1891 the Booth-Tuckers returned to International Headquarters in London as joint Commissioners for Foreign Affairs. In 1896 they were appointed joint Territorial Commanders of the United States following the defection of Emma's brother Ballington Booth. Emma Booth-Tucker was given the title 'The Consul' by her father. However, in October 1903 Emma Booth-Tucker was killed in a train crash while travelling to meet her husband in Chicago.

Frederick Booth-Tucker continued the work in America alone until 1904, when he returned to International Headquarters as Foreign Secretary. In June 1906, Booth-Tucker married for the third time, to Colonel Minnie Reid, daughter of a one-time Acting Governor of Bombay. Posted to India in 1907 as the Salvation Army's Special Commissioner for India and Ceylon, he and his new wife started work among India's criminal tribes in 1908, work they were involved in until 1919, when they returned to England owing to his poor health.

Later years
In 1913, Frederick Booth-Tucker was invested with the gold Kaiser-i-Hind Medal (First Class) by the Viceroy of India, Lord Hardinge, in recognition of the many years of service he had given to the poor of India. In 1919, suffering from ill-health, Booth-Tucker returned to England, but his relationship with his former brother-in-law General Bramwell Booth had cooled over the years and he was never again appointed to a senior command.

In 1920, Frederick Booth-Tucker was admitted to the Order of the Founder, The Salvation Army's highest accolade. He retired from active service in 1924, but with his wife continued to lead many spiritual campaigns during the 1920s in Britain and Europe and National Congresses in the Baltic States and Finland.

He wrote a number of poems and songs, and while in the United States compiled a collection of One Hundred Favourite Songs of The Salvation Army (1899). In 1893 he became the first editor of The Officer magazine, and wrote several books, including a Life of Catherine Booth (1892); The Consul (1903), and Muktifauj (1923), the story of the first forty years of The Salvation Army in India and Ceylon.

Frederick Booth-Tucker died of angina pectoris on 17 July 1929, and, like many prominent Salvationists, was buried in Abney Park Cemetery.