James Hack Tuke (13 September 1819 – 13 January 1896) was an English philanthropist.

Life

Born at

York York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...

, England in into a Quaker family, he was the son of Samuel Tuke and his wife Priscilla Hack; their seventh child, he had

Daniel Hack Tuke Daniel Hack Tuke (19 April 18275 March 1895) was an English physician and expert on mental illness. Family Tuke came from a long line of Quakers from York who were interested in mental illness and concerned with those afflicted. His great-gr ...

as a brother. He was educated at the

Religious Society of Friends Quakers are people who belong to a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations known formally as the Religious Society of Friends. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's abili ...

school there, and after working for a time in his father's wholesale tea business, became in 1852 a partner in the banking firm of Sharples and Co., and went to live at

Hitchin Hitchin () is a market town and unparished area in the North Hertfordshire Districts of England, district in Hertfordshire, England, with an estimated population of 35,842. History Hitchin is first noted as the central place of the Hicce peopl ...

in Hertfordshire. For eighteen years Tuke was treasurer of the Friends Foreign Mission Association, and for eight years chairman of the Friends Central Education Board. But he is mainly remembered for his philanthropic work in Ireland, after a visit to

Connaught Connacht ( ; ga, Connachta or ), is one of the provinces of Ireland, in the west of Ireland. Until the ninth century it consisted of several independent major Gaelic kingdoms (Uí Fiachrach, Uí Briúin, Uí Maine, Conmhaícne, and Delbh ...

in 1847, and of the scenes of distress which he witnessed. In addition to relief, his eye-witness testimony brought further relief to the west of IrelandChristine Kinealy, ''Charity and the Great Hunger in Ireland. The Kindness of Strangers'', Bloomsbury, 2013 In 1880, accompanied by

William Edward Forster William Edward Forster, PC, FRS (11 July 18185 April 1886) was an English industrialist, philanthropist and Liberal Party statesman. His supposed advocacy of the Irish Constabulary's use of lethal force against the National Land League earne ...

, he spent two months in the West of Ireland distributing relief which had been privately subscribed by Friends in England. Letters descriptive of the state of things he saw were published in ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'', and in his pamphlet, ''Irish Distress and its Remedies'' (1880), he pointed out that Irish distress was due to economic rather than political difficulties, and advocated state-aided land purchase, peasant proprietorship, light railways, government help for the fishing and local industries, and family emigration for the poorest peasants. From 1882 to 1884 he worked continuously in Ireland superintending the emigration of poor families to the United States and the

British Empire The British Empire was composed of the dominions, colonies, protectorates, mandates, and other territories ruled or administered by the United Kingdom and its predecessor states. It began with the overseas possessions and trading posts esta ...

. The failure of the potato crop in Ireland in 1885 again called forth Tuke's energy, and on the invitation of the government, aided by public subscription, he purchased and distributed seed potatoes to avert a

famine A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including war, natural disasters, crop failure, Demographic trap, population imbalance, widespread poverty, an Financial crisis, economic catastrophe or government policies. Th ...

. His reports and letters to ''

'', reprinted under the title ''The Condition of Donegal'' (1889), contributed to support for the bill passed for the construction of light railways in 1889 and the

Irish Land Act The Land Acts (officially Land Law (Ireland) Acts) were a series of measures to deal with the question of tenancy contracts and peasant proprietorship of land in Ireland in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Five such acts were introduced by ...

which established the

Congested Districts Board for Ireland The Congested Districts Board for Ireland was established by The Rt. Hon. A.J. Balfour, P.C., M.P., the Chief Secretary, in 1891 to alleviate poverty and congested living conditions in the west and parts of the northwest of Ireland. William ...

in 1891.

References

;Attribution {{DEFAULTSORT:Tuke, James Hack English Quakers 1819 births 1896 deaths James Hack