Somerville Pinkney Tuck (judge)

After being admitted to the bar, he began practicing law in New York City in 1882 with Gray & Davenport during which time he worked closely with John Clinton Gray.^[7] In his work, he was frequently called to Paris, where he became fluent in the language. "From 1882 to 1885, he was the Commissioner of the Court of Alabama Claims, and in 1885 was appointed by Secretary Bayard as special agent to search for evidence in England, France, Spain, Belgium, and the West Indies in relation to the French spoliation claims, at which time he secured evidence of the capture and condemnation of more than 1,500 vessels."^[6]

In 1888, Tuck was appointed U.S. Assistant Commissioner-General to the Paris Exposition, under Gen. William B. Franklin, spending eighteen months in Paris for the work. For his efforts, he was awarded the Commandeur de la Legion d'honneur at the close of the exposition. Tuck also assisted with the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.^[6]

In 1894, President Grover Cleveland recommended Tuck to succeed Ernest Howard Crosby as one of the judges of the Mixed Courts of Egypt,^[6] a mixed tribunal which decided questions between native and foreign populations.^[2] He was appointed in May 1894 Judge of the Mixed Court of the First Instance at Mansoura, Egypt by the Khedive Abbas II of Egypt and three years later was made Presiding Justice of the Court and was transferred to Cairo in 1897.^[1] In November 1908, upon the recommendation of President Theodore Roosevelt, he was chosen as a Judge of the Mixed Court of Appeals and was stationed in Alexandria, where he stayed until his retirement in 1920.^[2][1]

Tuck married Emily Rosalie Snowden Marshall (1858–1940), a daughter of Sara Rebecca Nicholls (née Snowden) Marshall and Col. Charles Marshall of Baltimore, a Confederate Adjutant and aide-de-camp to General Robert E. Lee.^[8] Emily's father was a grand-nephew of Chief Justice John Marshall,^[8] and among her five brothers was attorney Hudson Snowden Marshall.^[9] Together, they were the parents of:

• Carola Marshall Tuck (1889–1995), who married British soldier John Digby Mills, later MP, in 1918.^[10]
• William Hallam Tuck (1890–1965),^[11] who married Belgian heiress Hilda Bunge, a daughter of Édouard Bunge.^[12]
• Somerville Pinkney Tuck (1891–1967),^[13][14] a diplomat who married Beatrice Beck, only daughter of former U.S. Representative and Solicitor General James M. Beck, in 1924.^[15] They divorced in 1934 and he married heiress Katherine Whitney (née Demme) Douglas (1897–1981) in 1936.^[16][17]
• Alexander John Marshall Tuck (1892–1955),^[18] who married Eugenie Ambrose Philbin (1893–1931), a daughter of Eugene A. Philbin, in 1923.^[19] After her death, he married Margaret (née Screven) White (1903–1964), daughter of Franklin Buchanan Screven, in 1932. They divorced (she later married Angier Biddle Duke) and he married Princess Donna Christiana (née Torlonia) Lord, a daughter of Marino Torlonia, 4th Prince of Civitella-Cesi, in 1942.^[20] They also divorced and he married Edith Eleanor (née Holt) Richmond (1898–1982), a daughter of Frank A. Holt, in 1946.^[21]

Tuck died in Menton in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region on the French Riviera, close to the Italian border, on April 14, 1923.^[2] His widow died at their daughter's home, Bisterne Manor in New Forest, England, in 1940.^[8]