Buckley's Chance: The Incredible True Story of William Buckley and How He Conquered A New World
Australian’s use the term “You’ve got two chances - Buckley’s and none” to indicate little chance of success. Buckley is a real person, William Buckley, and this term developed from his surprising story of survival in 1800s in the Victorian bush. He was the man Buckley’s Falls in Geelong and Buckley’s Cave in Port Lonsdale were named after as these were the areas he lived in for 30 years, moving away from these areas to live and walk with the local First Nations tribes often.
So who was William Buckley? In Buckley’s Chance Linnell explores the story of an amazing survivor. William Buckley was a soldier who survived the Napoleonic war and fell in with some ne’er-do-wells who were very unsuccessful criminals and was convicted of stealing two small pieces of cloth and transported to a penal colony in Australia. In 1803 he escaped, a 6 foot 7 inch white man, lost in the bush. Amazing that the pursuing soldiers did not find him. He was lost and presumed dead for over 30 years until in 1835 he wandered into a white man’s camp knowing only limited English and astounding those in the camp.
Linnell says one of the reasons Buckley survived was that the Aboriginal tribes in the area saw him as a reincarnation of their ancestors so he was not expected to participate in any inter-tribal conflicts. Once found, Buckley could not be lost again. Working in the then tiny village of Melbourne he worked as an interpreter for the landowner, John Batman and then as a police aide. He was increasingly concerned with the brutal treatment of the aboriginal people and withdrew from this type of work. He was accused of supporting the Aboriginal tribes in their fight to keep their land by the white settlers and also accused of helping the white man strip the land from the local Aboriginal tribes. Fearing for his life he left Victoria in 1837 to live in Tasmania.
"I was particularly fascinated by the way Linnell, through the telling of the history of one white man, also included the history of Australia’s First Peoples, in particular the Wadawurrung."
- Jane Cowell
Linnell extends Buckley’s story to give us more truth telling about the history of Melbourne and how it was founded on the blood of the indigenous people who lived there. He also continues to strip the veil of nobility given to Melbourne’s founders like John Batman to give us a raw picture of a man ravaged by syphilis, with a reputation for rape, murder and fraud committed on the local aboriginal tribes. Other notable figures of early Melbourne and Tasmanian settlement are also explored, as they travelled on the same convict ship as William Buckley, some as crew, some as children and some as other convicts.
I was particularly fascinated by the way Linnell, through the telling of the history of one white man, also included the history of Australia’s First Peoples, in particular the Wadawurrung. Linnell also includes in the back of the book the summary of many other characters who appeared throughout William’s life and what happened to them later, a list of Wadawurrung clan names and locations and more information about the First Peoples of Victoria. This is a fascinating read and I really recommend it to you to find out more about the foundation of the State we live in.