Captain Luke Collingwood (estimated birth circa 1733 - died before 1783) was a British sailor and the captain of the slave ship Zong.[1] Prior to the Zong's fateful voyage he had served as Ship's Surgeon on at least one voyage.[2]
Collingwood had never commanded a ship before the Zong. It was his first and last command. He took the command in the hope of making enough money for retirement. The captain and likely some or most of the crew, were not particularly experienced; shown by the middle passage of the voyage taking double the usual time.
After the Zong incident it appears, he went back to the life of a general practitioner. He died before the court case for the Insurance loss took place in March 1783. There is a posthumous entry in a Directory [3] (most likely a Liverpool Town Directory) of 1784 as "surgeon, medicine".
A married man, he had at least four children, born in Liverpool. It's estimated he was married in the early-mid 1760s. The notorious incident would be the subject of a painting by British artist J. M. W. Turner many decades later.