William Buckley (convict)

Lore & Background

William Buckley was born in 1776 or 1780 in Marton, Cheshire, England. After his father's death, he was raised by his mother and stepfather. At age 15 he became an apprentice bricklayer. He later enlisted in the Cheshire Militia and served in the 4th (King's Own) Regiment of Foot, though he saw no active combat in the Netherlands. In 1802 he was convicted at the Salford Sessions of knowingly receiving a roll of stolen cloth and was sentenced to transportation to New South Wales.

Buckley arrived at Port Phillip Bay in October 1803 aboard HMS Calcutta. He escaped with five others on 27 December 1803 to avoid being sent to Van Diemen's Land. After his companions surrendered or were captured, Buckley survived alone near Aireys Inlet and later along the coast. He met three Wathaurong people who befriended him, and he was eventually adopted by the Wallarranga tribe, who believed him to be the spirit of a deceased chief whose spear he had taken. He lived with them for 32 years, learning their language, customs, and bush skills.

In 1835 Buckley was granted a conditional pardon and became an Indigenous culture recorder. From 1837 to 1850 he worked as a storekeeper and later as a gatekeeper at the Female Factory in Hobart, before leaving Tasmania for Melbourne in 1850. He died on 30 January 1856.

Reader's Guide

William Buckley's significance lies in his extraordinary survival and assimilation into an Indigenous Australian community for 32 years after escaping a penal settlement. His experience provides a rare firsthand perspective on the culture and life of the Wathaurong people before extensive European colonization. After his pardon, he served as an Indigenous culture recorder, though his accounts were sometimes viewed skeptically by contemporaries. Buckley's story illustrates the complexities of early contact between European convicts and Aboriginal Australians, and his ability to adapt to an unfamiliar way of life suggests intelligence and resilience despite contemporary descriptions of him as ungainly and of low intelligence. His legacy endures as a symbol of cross-cultural encounter and survival in the Australian frontier.

Did You Know?

• Buckley grew to approximately 6 feet 6 inches (198 cm), which was very unusual for the time.
• He was believed by the Wallarranga tribe to be the spirit of a deceased tribal chief whose spear he had taken from a burial mound.
• Buckley was given the name Murrangurk, which was the chief's name, and also called Muuranong guurk, meaning 'one who has been killed and brought back to life again'.
• He was convicted of knowingly receiving a roll of stolen cloth and sentenced to transportation for fourteen years or life.

Origins and the Road to Conviction

William Buckley was born around 1776 or 1780 in Marton, a village near Macclesfield in Cheshire, to a farming family. As a young child he was taken in by his maternal grandfather, who funded his schooling and severed his ties to his parents, two sisters, and a brother. At fifteen he began an apprenticeship as a bricklayer under Robert Wyatt. His most striking trait was his height—roughly six feet six inches, a rarity for the era that earned him the regimental role of pivot man. Contemporaries described him as ungainly and smallpox-marked, of limited intellect, though biographer Marjorie Tipping argued his later survival spoke to real shrewdness and courage. At about nineteen he enlisted in the Cheshire Militia and later the 4th (King's Own) Regiment of Foot, earning good regard from his officers. In 1799 he fought in the Netherlands against Napoleon under the Duke of York and was severely wounded in the right hand. Back at Chatham he grew restless and drifted into bad company. On 2 August 1802 the Sussex Assizes convicted him of knowingly receiving a roll of stolen cloth. His sentence: transportation to New South Wales for fourteen years or life. He never saw his family again.

The Voyage and the Flight from Port Phillip

In April 1803 Buckley sailed aboard HMS Calcutta, one of two vessels sent to establish a settlement at Port Phillip Bay under Lieutenant-Colonel David Collins. They landed at Sullivan Bay, near present-day Sorrento, in October. Skilled labourers like Buckley were housed in huts near building sites and granted some freedom, partly because Sydney lay over six hundred miles away. The site quickly proved untenable—lacking fresh water and arable soil—and authorities resolved to relocate everyone to Van Diemen's Land. Buckley and five companions fled during a rainstorm on 27 December 1803, hoping to reach Port Jackson. The escape was disastrous: one man was shot, another surrendered to Collins in January 1804, and the remaining three struggled on dwindling rations, seafood, and berries. They pushed as far as the Yawang Hills before doubling back toward the bay. After a week of failed attempts to signal a ship, two companions walked back to Sullivan Bay, leaving Buckley alone. Dehydrated, starving, and covered in sores, he was near death when he found embers, fresh water, and a cave at Aireys Inlet. He rebuilt his strength, then built a crude hut of branches and seaweed beside a stream and lived by foraging.

Thirty-Two Years Among the Wathaurong

Buckley's first sustained contact with Aboriginal people came at Nooraki, a lookout on the Wye River near the Great Ocean Road, where three Wathaurong men carrying spears befriended him and prepared a meal of crayfish. They invited him to their huts, and he arrived with them by nightfall. The next morning the trio pressed deeper into the forest, but Buckley signalled he intended to stay. He returned to his shelter along a creek on the western shore of Port Phillip Bay, but winter was closing in and finding food and warmth grew increasingly hard. Lonely and worn down, he set out toward the eastern side of the bay, hoping to find other English escapees. Along the way he found a burial mound with a spear in the ground and took it as a walking stick. Further on, he stumbled crossing a stream and was swept away by the current. In this vulnerable state he was taken in by the Wallarranga tribe of the Wathaurong nation. Colonial authorities had given him up for dead. For the next thirty-two years Buckley lived among the Wathaurong, assimilating so fully into their way of life that his biographer cited it as evidence of his intelligence, shrewdness, and courage.

Pardon, Service, and the 'Wild White Man'

When Buckley re-emerged from the bush in 1835, after thirty-two years living among the Wathaurong, he was granted a pardon. He then took on the role of Indigenous culture recorder, a position that drew directly on the deep knowledge of language, custom, and landscape he had accumulated over three decades in the Wathaurong community. From 1837 to 1850 he served as a public servant in Tasmania, a posting that anchored him in colonial administrative life for over a decade. His extraordinary story had already made him a figure of public fascination; he was widely known as the 'wild white man,' a label that captured both the remarkable nature of his survival and the era's tendency to frame him as an anomaly. His life had passed through so many distinct phases—English bricklayer who helped raise the first buildings at Port Phillip Bay, soldier who fought in the Netherlands, convict sentenced to transportation, and then a man who lived in the Australian interior for over thirty years—that no single category could contain him. He died on 30 January 1856, leaving behind a life that challenged contemporary assumptions about intelligence, adaptability, and the boundaries between cultures.

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