William Tucker: “Courageous, Calm and Unostentatious”

William Alfred Tucker was born into a family of Baptist Christians in the village of Osbourne Store, near Four Paths, Clarendon, on February 9, 1846. Like his parents, William and Sarah, Tucker gave his life to Christ at an early age. After going to live in Old Harbour, his sense of call to the ministry deepened and he was admitted to Calabar in 1871, where he proved to be an academically gifted student. 

After completing the ministerial training programme at Calabar, Tucker went to serve in Spanish Town, where he spent fifty years as pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church. This church emerged out of a schism in the Spanish Town (now Phillippo) Church.

In 1842, while Phillippo was on a visit to England, some trustees of his church members installed Thomas Dowson, Phillippo’s associate pastor, as pastor in Phillippo’s stead. Upon his return to Jamaica, Phillippo took the matter to court, which ruled that Phillippo was the rightful pastor of the church. This led to Dowson, with a majority of church members withdrawing from First Baptist Church to form a new church at 7 White Church Street in Spanish Town. The original name of this church was later changed to Second Baptist Church and still later to Ebenezer Baptist Church. During the pastorate of Joslyn James Carter Henry, Ebenezer and First Baptist Church were reunited and named Phillippo Baptist Church. Hurricane Charlie in 1951 destroyed the Ebenezer church building.

William Tucker

For several of his 50 years as pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church, Tucker also had charge over the Baptist churches in Kitson Town, Heartlands, Mt Hermon, Lucky Valley, Bowers Hill and Zion Hill. 

Tucker immersed himself in the life of the Spanish Town community. He loved the people and was known for his kindness especially to the poor. For 16 years, he was a member of the Parochial Board of St Catherine. He also served as Chairman of the St Catherine Building Society, as Manager of many schools and as a Justice of the Peace. Meanwhile, Tucker served on several JBU Committees. 

In the judgment of an author writing in the Jamaica Baptist Reporter, Tucker was a person who was “courageous, bold, calm and unostentatious” in service. Always operating with a high sense of duty, “he was prepared for calumny in the service of truth and was indifferent to opposition when justice was his motivation. He refused to bow at the shrine of falsehood.” 

In 1877 and 1895, he travelled to Britain and France and visited Haiti and Barbados on his return journey home. 

In 1880, he was united in marriage to Olivia Clarke of Spanish Town. The union produced two children, William and Charles. Two years after his wife’s passing from a malignant tumor in 1903, his second marriage was to Irene Ingleton, who gave birth to four children, Arthur, Ivy, James and Mollie. Mollie died in childhood. 

During an illness that would eventually lead to his death, aged 85, Tucker benefited from the perpetual care and kindness of his wife, Irene, who provided him with a ministry of comfort in suffering day and night. After the gangrene of his leg had caused him so much pain, Tucker breathed his last on March 6, 1929 when God crowned his end with perfect peace. Irene Tucker lived until she was 88. She died in Spanish Town in 1954.