Charles Tucker (British Army officer)

Lieutenant General Sir Charles Tucker, GCB, GCVO (died 22 December 1935) was a British Army officer during the late nineteenth and early years of the twentieth centuries.

Tucker was commissioned into the 22nd Foot in 1855.

He first came to prominence during the Zulu war when, as a major, he commanded the Fort at Kopje Allein in 1879.

By the time of the Second Boer War he was a senior commander and was ordered by Lord Roberts to garrison the City of Pretoria. He later held the command of the Bloemfontein garrison in the Orange River Colony, until he left South Africa in March 1902. He was appointed a Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath (KCB) in November 1900, in recognition of his services in South Africa, and invested as such by King Edward VII on 13 May 1902, after his return to the UK. In his final despatch from South Africa in June 1902, Lord Kitchener, Commander-in-Chief of the forces during the latter part of the war, described Tucker as an officer who "has never feared responsibility, or failed in giving emphatic pronouncement to the good common-sense of which he is possessed".

Tucker returned to South Africa with his newly married wife in June 1902, but the situation had ended with the Peace of Vereeniging, and he left already the following month from Cape Town on the SS Canada and returned to Southampton in late July. He was promoted to lieutenant-general in the South Africa Honours list published on 26 June 1902.

He became General Officer Commanding Scottish District in 1903 and, subsequently, the first General Officer Commanding-in-Chief for Scottish Command in 1905: he retired later that year.

He was also Colonel of the Cheshire Regiment (1909–1911) and of the South Staffordshire Regiment (1911–1935).

He married first, in 1865, Matilda Frederica Hayter (d 1897), daughter of John Hayter, Painter-in-Ordinary to Queen Victoria, and 2nd, in 1902, Nelly O´Connell, only daughter of Sir Maurice O’Connell, 2nd Bt.

Most Honourable Order of the Bath

• CB - Companion - 1879
• KCB - Knight Commander - 29 November 1900 - in recognition of services in connection with the Campaign in South Africa 1899-1900
• GCB - Knight Grand Cross - 1912

Royal Victorian Order

• GCVO - Knight Grand Cross - 1905