Beverley D. Tucker

Rev. Beverley D. Tucker

Beverley Dandridge Tucker (1846-1930) was born in Richmond, Virginia. He is descended from a long line of American ancestors of English descent, the first American progenitor of which was one George Tucker of County Kent, England, who emigrated to Bermuda about the year 1619. George Tucker's descendant, lawyer and judge St. George Tucker (Tucker's great-grandfather), moved from Bermuda to Virginia in about 1770.[1]

Beverley Dandridge Tucker was one of eight children of Nathaniel Beverley Tucker and Jane Shelton Ellis.[2] He graduated from the University of Virginia and was selected as a Rhodes Scholar to Oxford. He studied law and then medicine but found neither to his liking. He then entered the Episcopal Theological Seminary at Alexandria, Virginia. There he found his life's work. Tucker became a minister of the Episcopal Church and eventually Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Southern Virginia which geographically encompasses Colonial Williamsburg. In 1905 Tucker delivered a sermon on the Continuity of the Life of the Church in a service inaugurating the restoration of the interior of Bruton Parish Church in Williamsburg to its colonial form and appearance.[3]

The Rev. Tucker married Anna Maria Washington (1851-1927), the last Washington to be born at Mount Vernon. They had 13 children including Episcopal minister and hymn composer, F. Bland Tucker; Beverley Dandridge Tucker, Jr., the 6th Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Ohio; and Henry St. George Tucker, the 19th Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church. (The name "Maria" is pronounced "Mariah" by family members.)

Among the accolades Beverley Dandridge Tucker received was an honorary degree from William and Mary and a plaque in Bruton Parish that reads: "To the Glory of God and in memory of Beverley Dandridge Tucker, a bishop of the Diocese of Southern Virginia 1906-1930, this North Gallery formerly the slaves' or servants' gallery has been restored by Letitia Pate Evans in recognition of [Bishop Tucker's] lifelong work among the negro people."

References

  1. ↑ Lyon Gardiner Tyler, editor. Encyclopedia of Virginia Biography.New York: Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1915.
  2. ↑ Henry, William Wirt; Spofford, Ainsworth Rand; p (1893). Eminent and representative men of Virginia and the District of Columbia in the nineteenth century. Brant & Fuller. pp. 580–81. Retrieved 16 February 2014.
  3. ↑ William Archer Rutherfoord Goodwin. Bruton Parish Church restored and its historic environment:Petersburg, Va. The Franklin press,1907.