Person:James Tucker (16)

1829 - James Tucker was born in Truro, Cornwall, on 11 February 1829, to Thomas Tucker, a coach builder and herald painter, and his wife Elizabeth. He was the ninth of thirteen children.

1837 - Baptised along with six other brothers and sisters.

1841 - With parents at Edwards Street, Truro. James TUCKER, aged 12, born in Cornwall.

James followed in his father's footsteps and took up the trade of coach builder. He worked at this trade on his arrival in Australia. The details of his emigrating to Australia have yet to be uncovered, but it is possible he followed after several of his brothers and sisters who migrated around 1847-49 to South Australia where they lived for about four years before moving to Victoria.

1855-56 - While still working as a coach builder, James married Jane Johnston, of London on 18 July, in St Peter's Church of England. They lived in Islington Street, Collingwood Flat, where just over a year later, their baby daughter Annie Jane was born on 19 October 1856.

1857 - His joy was short lived, however, when a short while later tragedy struck. Jane contracted Cholera and died on 19 February 1857, leaving the young Annie Jane, just four months old, to her father's care.

Around this time gold was discovered in NSW and Victoria, and it wasn't long before James left his trade of coach builder and joined the thousands seeking their fortunes in the gold rush. Is is plausible that James may have left his infant daughter in the care of Jane's parents who also lived in Melbourne, while he investigated the possibility of a new life for himself and his little daughter on the gold fields.

1860 - By this time, James had found his way to the Araluen gold fields, near Goulburn in NSW, where he married Bertha Isabella Mayne. James and Bertha had no children of their own, but Bertha mothered and brought up four-year-old Annie Jane as her own daughter. Bertha's father and brothers were gold miners, and she and her family had spent a much of their lives on the gold fields. James worked on the Araluen goldfields with Tasso Morgan (who returned to the USA) and Charles Murray Carver. Both Morgan and Carver also married Mayne sisters.

Many mining towns in those days were just temporary shanty towns or tent cities, as miners erected tents or crude huts on their mining leases, worked them until the ore ran out, then moved on, following new gold discoveries. Like many others, James and Bertha moved around quite a bit, from one gold field to another.

1873 - James must have been quite successful in his new career, and by 1873 had progressed to the position of mining manager. The family was by then living at Junction Point NSW, which was a substantial gold producing area in the third quarter of the ninteenth century. It was situated about half way along the old "gold road" between Goulburn and Bathurst, via Abercrombie. At that time Junction Point was a thriving shanty town, and whilst many of the miners lived in tents or huts, the town boasted a Post and Telegraph Office, a school, a butcher's shop, and a dance hall, as well as many grog shops. Today the area is all paddocks and grazing land, and all that remains to be seen of the town are a few fence posts and a large rusted boiler that was used in the crushing of the gold ore. James' daughter Annie married and the witnesses to the marriage were the bride's father, James King Tucker, and her stepmother, Bertha Isabella Tucker. This is the first documented record found so far of James adopting the middle name of "King." King was his mother's maiden surname, and several of his brothers were christened with this middle name as children. James was not, but appears to have taken it on in later life.

1885 - Not much is known about James' and Bertha's lives after Annie's marriage, but they apparently followed Annie and Stephen to North Queensland, and in 1885 were residing in Herberton on the Western edge of the Atherton Tableland, North Queensland. On 1st November 1885 James took out a mining lease of 5 acres at Return Creek, in the proclaimed Mining District of Tinaroo, near Herberton, to mine "silver, lead and tin." This mineral lease, no. 295, was for a term of 21 years, at a yearly rent of "two pounds ten shillings sterling." The mine was called "The Minerva."

1891 - James seems to have lived out the remainder of his days mining in the Herberton area. In 1891, in partnership with a John Newell, he took out several more mining leases in the Tinaroo District to mine silver. In February, they took out two adjoining leases, nos. 518 & 519, of 5 acres each, again for a yearly rent of two pounds ten shillings each. These mines were called "Broken Mountain 1" and "Broken Mountain 2". In April 1891 they took out two further leases to mine silver, lease no. 544 of 10 acres, at a yearly rent of five pounds and an adjoining lease, no. 549, of five acres, at a yearly rent of two pounds ten shillings. These were called "The Rio de La Plata" and "The Rio de La Plata no. 1" respectively.

1. ↑ IGI.
2. ↑ Qld Death Reg. No. 1906/1809.