Frederick St. George De Lautour Booth-Tucker

Commissioner Frederick St. George de Lautour Booth-Tucker, (21 March 1853 – 17 July 1929) was a senior Salvation Army officer and the son-in-law of Willam and Catherine Booth, the founders of the Salvation Army.

Early life

Born in Monghyr in India, the son of William Thornhill Tucker, a deputy commissioner in the Indian Civil Service and author of an English-Persian dictionary, Tucker was five years old when the Indian Mutiny broke out. He was educated at Cheltenham College from 1866 until 1873, leaving when he was 20 years old. During his time at the college he was known as a keen scholar and athlete. He joined the Indian Civil Service as an assistant commissioner in 1874, being posted to Amritsar, Simla and later to Dharamsala, where he was also assistant magistrate. In 1875, he was converted to Christianity during the Dwight L. Moody and Ira D. Sankey revival meetings in London. He married Louisa Mary Bode, 18 years his senior, in 1877 at Amritsar in India.

Salvation Army

Against the wishes of his wife and parents, Tucker joined Salvation Army in 1881 while on leave in England from the Indian Civil Service and came to work in the legal department at the international headquarters in London. He was posted to the Camberwell Corps in July 1882.

On 19 September 1882 Major Tucker arrived in Bombay accompanied by three officers intending to spread the teachings of the Salvation Army in India. Although thousands attended the meetings, most of Tucker's early converts were already Christians.

Tucker saw the Indian caste system as his main obstacle, so he decided to work among India's 60 million outcasts. He and his fellow Salvationists adopted the way of life of the outcasts. Their Salvation Army uniforms were replaced with the saffron robes of the Indian fakir, and they assumed Indian names, Tucker being known as "Fakir Singh", meaning the "Lion of God".