St. George Tucker

St. George Tucker (July 10, 1752 – November 10, 1827) was a Bermudian-born American lawyer, military officer and professor who taught law at the College of William & Mary. He strengthened the requirements for a law degree at the college, as he believed lawyers needed deep educations. He served as a judge of the General Court of Virginia and later on the Court of Appeals. Following the American Revolutionary War, Tucker supported the gradual emancipation of slaves, which he proposed to the state legislature in a pamphlet published in 1796. He wrote an American edition of Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England that became a valuable reference work for many American lawyers and law students in the early 19th century. President James Madison in 1813 appointed Tucker as a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Virginia, later serving on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. Many of his descendants were notable lawyers, professors and politicians. Early life Tucker was born near Port Royal, Bermuda, to English colonists Anne Butterfield (?-1797) and Colonel Henry Tucker (1713–1787). His father was the great-grandson of George Tucker, who emigrated to Bermuda from England in 1662. The Tuckers were well-regarded in Port Royal. St. George's older brother Thomas Tudor Tucker migrated to Virginia in the 1760s after completing medical school in Scotland, and settled in South Carolina before the American Revolutionary War. Another brother was Henry Tucker, the President of the Council of Bermuda and occasional acting Governor of Bermuda. George Tucker, a politician and author, was a relative of theirs. The name St. George had been in the family since his great-great-grandfather George Tucker married Frances St. George.