Francis Tuckfield (1808-1865), Wesleyan missionary, was eighteen years old when, having worked as a miner and a fisherman, he decided to become a preacher. He was selected by the Wesleyan Mission of London as a missionary to the Aboriginal people of the Port Phillip district in 1837 and in March of the following year arrived in Australia with his wife, Sarah (neé Gilbart, c. 1808-1854), a Cornish farmer's daughter. Soon after landing in Melbourne in July 1838, Tuckfield undertook a number of journeys around the Geelong and Colac districts - some with William Buckley as his interpreter - to find a place for the establishment of a mission. He settled on a site on the Barwon River near Birregurra and established the Buntingdale Mission in 1839. Despite typical missionary zeal, the mission struggled to either to convert the local Aboriginal people or convince them to stay at the station. Tuckfield continued to try running Buntingdale as a mission, but also worked at developing it into a successful farming property as its primary purpose faltered. The station closed in 1850, after which Tuckfield worked as a clergyman in churches in Victoria, New South Wales and Tasmania. Sarah Tuckfield died, aged 46, in 1854. Francis remarried in 1857. He died in Portland, Victoria, in October 1865, having contracted pneumonia while officiating at a funeral. Francis Tuckfield's journal of his voyage to Port Phillip in 1837 is held by the State Library of Victoria.
