James Tinker (April 11, 1817 – February 20, 1886) was an American farmer from Rochester, Wisconsin who served a single one-year term as a Free Soil Party member of the Wisconsin State Assembly, in 1851, from Racine County[1] as well as holding a variety of local offices.
[2] He and his wife emigrated to the United States, and came to live in an area in western Racine County near the boundaries of Rochester, Dover and Burlington townships known as the "English Settlement".
[3] James is recorded as having been a colleague back in England of the famed temperance orator John Hockings, the "Birmingham Blacksmith"[4] and they were chosen to go to England in 1851 to represent Wisconsin at The Great Exhibition, the 1851 London World's Fair.
[2][7] Tinker held local offices such as tax collector and town magistrate before being elected in 1850 as a Free Soil member of the Assembly for the third Racine County district (Towns of Burlington and Rochester) (Racine County dropped from five Assembly seats to three with that election, so it is difficult to argue that he succeeded any particular incumbent).
[8] On October 14, 1854, Tinker was among the Rochester delegates to the Racine County convention of the new Republican Party.