Educated at Edinburgh Academy and Edinburgh University, graduating in 1856, John Batty Tuke belonged to a Quaker family, several generations of which lived in the East Riding of Yorkshire. One branch of the family founded the Retreat at York, the first hospital to adopt the humane treatment of the insane. Following graduation he sailed for New Zealand where he was appointed medical officer in charge of colonial troops with whom he served in the Māori War. At the end of the campaign in 1863 he returned to Edinburgh and decided to specialise in mental diseases. After an assistantship with Dr Skae he was appointed medical superintendent of the Fife and Kinross Asylum, a post he left when he was invited to join the staff of a private mental hospital known as Saughton Hall Asylum, in Edinburgh.