William Tucker (settler)

William Tucker (c. 16 May 1784 – December 1817) was a British convict, a sealer, a trader in human heads, an Otago settler, and New Zealand’s first art dealer.

Tucker is the man who stole a preserved Māori head and started the retail trade in them. A document discovered in 2003 revealed his activities had no bearing on the war in the south and shows he was the first New Zealand art dealer, initially trading in human heads and secondarily in pounamu a variety of Nephrite jade.

He was baptised on 16 May 1784 at Portsea, Portsmouth, England, the son of Timothy and Elizabeth Tucker, people of humble rank. In 1798 Tucker and Thomas Butler shoplifted goods worth more than five shillings from a ‘Taylor’ William Wilday or Wildey, and were convicted and sentenced to death. They were then reprieved and sentenced to seven years’ transportation to New South Wales. They left Portsmouth on Hillsborough on 20 December 1798.

The voyage was one of the worst in the history of transportation. ‘Jail Fever’ (typhus) raged through the ship, which lost 95 convicts before arriving at Sydney on 26 July 1799. It is not known where Tucker was assigned.

In January 1803, he and Anthony Rawson stowed away on Atlas, visiting China before reaching Deal in England on 13 December 1803. The stowaways were captured and sent under escort to Portsmouth to return to New South Wales on Experiment — many other returnees were hanged. They arrived back in Sydney on 24 June 1804.

In March 1805, shortly after his term expired, Tucker was advertised as shipping out on Governor King for the coast of New Zealand. She was one of the ships of Lord, Kable and Underwood, a group formed by Simeon Lord, Henry Kable, and James Underwood to exploit the sealing grounds at the Antipodes Islands to the south and east of New Zealand’s South Island. She probably landed men at Dusky Sound on the South Island’s south west coast. Tucker was probably later at the Antipodes Islands.

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