Introduction...

Arthur St. George Tucker MBE was the founder and superintendent of the Nonsuch Training School for Boys.

Arthur Tucker married Elsie Green of London, and the couple moved to Nonsuch Island where they we put in charge of the quarantine station under the Health Department. Mr Tucker then conceived the idea of a training school for young delinquents run along such lines as would turn out good citizens.

The Quarantine Station at Nonsuch became the headquarters of Dr Bebe and his bathysphere team about 1928 and Mr Tucker was skipper of the deep-sea tugboat Gladisfen that transported and lowered the doctor and the sphere to the mysterious world beneath the water.

Mr Tucker petitioned for the creation of the reform school (Nonsuch Training School) with the support of the Department of Health (in particular Dr Henry Wilkinson) and Executive Council on Prisons.

Mr & Mrs Tucker were at this famous and unique training school since they founded it on 1st January 1934 on Nonsuch Island at the Southern entrance to Castle Harbour, later relocating to Fort Cunningham on Paget Island in 1948. The Tucker’s remained at the school until his retirement in 1958, aged 62 for health reasons. The school was then taken over by Mr John Packer.

During the this time, some 276 boys had passed through the school with over 80% not re-offending – a record that clearly has lessons to teach us in the current day. Other “residents” included a Miss Ruth Bulcher, a Nazi spy transferred from the St. George Prisoner of War Camp in 1941 by special request of the Government.

The boys attending the school were trained on the principles of naval routine and discipline. In addition to formal education, training was provided on cooking, bakery, seamanship, knots, sail making & repair and engine repair.