I'm Batman: William Buckley

Hello, Heat, And Cold Beers

SPEAKER_00 0:16

Oh, hey there.

SPEAKER_04 0:17

Oh, hey there.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

How are you?

SPEAKER_04 0:19

I am well. How are you?

SPEAKER_00 0:23

I'm good. I'm Kate.

SPEAKER_04 0:24

I'm Bradley.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

And this is the History Buffoons. Welcome. Huzzah. Yes, welcome. How are you? You asked me that. I'm still well. Good. How are you? I am also still well. Um, we're looking at the very end of July. I'm very um sad that this month is over. Yeah. But I am I'm looking forward to cooler days, which probably won't come until like mid-September, but that's fine.

SPEAKER_04 0:50

Today wasn't so bad for what it's been, which has been kind of nice. The mornings, because I get up so damn early, the mornings have been a bit cooler as well. So that's been kind of nice for me. Um, because when I leave my house and it's already 78 degrees out, and I leave at like 3:30 in the morning. That ain't cool, man.

SPEAKER_00 1:10

That ain't cool. So let's talk about something cool. Like our beers. Oh, hey, they are actually cold. We're having Sam Adams. I don't think we've had Sam Adams on this podcast yet.

SPEAKER_04 1:22

We've never had Sam Adams on this podcast. So you have the what is it, light?

SPEAKER_00 1:27

Just um, the American light.

SPEAKER_04 1:29

Yeah, I have a blueberry lager. That's gonna be weird.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

And this was established in Boston, which makes complete sense.

SPEAKER_04 1:38

Well, yeah, that's where it's from. So I will tell you this the owner of Samuel Adams, Jim Cook, says um a lot when he gives speeches. Oh, really? I've seen him in person. I've met the guy. So um um, we used to actually because that's where I met Alan Casey, two of my really good friends. We had a tracker.

SPEAKER_00 2:01

For how many times he's oh no. It was a lot.

SPEAKER_04 2:03

I don't remember the number, but it was a lot.

SPEAKER_00 2:07

Wow. So maybe he needs a speech written out.

SPEAKER_04 2:10

Um no. He's a really nice guy though. I'm sure just his speech giving skills were wild.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

So I'm gonna try the summary ale first. Cheers. Cheers. It's summary? It's ale-y? It works.

SPEAKER_00 2:27

Mine's definitely um very light.

SPEAKER_04 2:30

Oh, like very, very light, kinda like Miller light.

SPEAKER_00 2:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:34

Yeah. Too light.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 2:38

You can have the other summer ale. Citrus wheat ale.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

That does have nice.

SPEAKER_04 2:46

I told you you could have. One of these.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

Throw it to me. Roll it to me. Lightly. Toss it to me. Toss it to you.

SPEAKER_04 2:54

She's like, I still have I was supposed to have a porch rocker, which is like a summer shandy, but she dropped it.

SPEAKER_00 3:03

You're welcome. I didn't give it to you. That would have been a little bit more than a little bit.

SPEAKER_04 3:07

Two other ones in the fridge.

SPEAKER_00 3:09

My hands were full, and that's why I dropped it.

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What are you going to teach me today? What will I learn from this glorious

What “A Buckley’s Chance” Means

SPEAKER_04 3:19

podcast?

SPEAKER_00 3:19

We're gonna talk about the phrase.

SPEAKER_04 3:21

Oh shit.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

You've got a Buckley's chance. That's not a phrase. It's an Australian phrase. Alright. Alright. Damn it, we should have had Flusters. Australians will be uh it's really not.

SPEAKER_04 3:35

I know it's made in Texas. That's so sad. It's originated from Australia, though. They used to have they were called oil cans, they're 32-ounce cans. So they're like thick and stocky, but yeah, those were funny. I used to sell those. They had extra special bitters. I think that's what they was called, the green one. Yeah, fosters ain't what it used to be either. No.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

Okay. So they do still say this phrase, you've got a buckley's chance.

SPEAKER_04 4:06

Can I just say something real quick before you? Yeah, of course. I really apologize for my Australian accent. It is not fucking bad.

SPEAKER_00 4:12

That's why I was trying to move on from that.

SPEAKER_04 4:13

I just want to make sure I'm not making fun of Australians. I am just terrible.

SPEAKER_00 4:17

You're just bad. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:19

So if someone says that to you today. What is this saying again? You've got a Buckley's chance.

SPEAKER_04 4:25

You've got a Buckley's chance. Okay. What does that mean?

SPEAKER_00 4:29

In America, we would say you've got a chance in hell.

SPEAKER_04 4:33

Oh. Or no chance in hell. So is it? Or no chance in hell. Is there no chance in Buckley?

SPEAKER_00 4:38

There's no chance in Buckley. Buckley has no chance. You've got no chance in hell. Exactly. So basically, your odds are somewhere between slim and non-existent. Slim the nun, as some would say, too. Yep. It's the kind of phrase you'd use if your friend announced he was going to win the lottery without buying a ticket.

SPEAKER_04 4:57

Well, you don't even have a slim. You just have a nun.

SPEAKER_00 5:00

No chance. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 5:02

No chance in Buckley. What's it saying again? I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_00 5:04

You've got a Buckley's chance.

SPEAKER_04 5:05

You've got a Buckley's chance.

SPEAKER_00 5:07

You've got no chance.

SPEAKER_04 5:09

Every time you say it, I just think of uh Buckley's chance. I just think of Toy Star. You got a friend in me. Anyways. You've got no Buckley's. You've got a Buckley's chance. Yeah. That line is gonna screw me up from that song.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

So, like many old expressions, no one can say for certainty where it came from. But a popular but a popular explanation is that it refers to a man named William Buckley. Bill Buck. All right. So how do you manage to like just think that quick? I don't know. According to the story, Buckley's chances of survival were considered so hopeless that his name became shorthand for no chance at all.

SPEAKER_04 5:54

Could you imagine that, like, dude, you are fucked. We're gonna use your name in a saying. Holy shit, that would suck. I mean, I guess he lives on forever, right? But oh boy, you've got a Buckley's chance. I got it right. You did.

William Buckley’s Early Life And Army

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So Buckley was born on August 8th, 1780, in the village of Martin near Maclesville in Ches Cheshire, England. That was a lot.

SPEAKER_04 6:24

He's from England. Did he get uh banished to Australia? He sure did. What did he do wrong?

SPEAKER_00 6:30

Not a whole lot.

SPEAKER_04 6:31

Oh, why did he get banished then?

SPEAKER_00 6:34

Because that's how things worked back then.

SPEAKER_04 6:36

Well, if you're in England today, you can get arrested for a Facebook post, so that's fucking stupid.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

So his father, his fat his father, his father, Elisha Buckley was a farmer, and like most children growing up in rural England during the late 18th century, William's future probably looked fairly predictable. Sure. Hard work, long days, and if he was fortunate, a quiet life that never found its way into the history books.

SPEAKER_04 7:08

Sorry, Buckley.

SPEAKER_00 7:09

So when William was still young, his family moved to the town of Macclesfield. It was a growing industrial center known for its silk mills, and life there was very different from the countryside. England itself was changing rapidly, factories were appearing, cities were expanding, and the country was increasingly consumed by wars against revolutionary France and later Napoleon. So for a young man looking for steady work, the military offered something that many ordinary jobs could not regular pay, food, clothing, and a chance to see more of the world than the village that he grew up in. Sure. Buckley enlisted in the British Army and eventually served in the king's own regiment, also known as the Fourth Regiment of Foot.

SPEAKER_04 7:53

Fourth Regiment of Foot.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

So common um, so life for the common soldier around 1800, officers tended to come from wealthier families.

SPEAKER_04 8:04

Right.

SPEAKER_00 8:04

But enlisted men were usually ordinary laborers.

SPEAKER_04 8:08

Well, yeah, that's just, I mean, I think that's still come kind of the thing today, really, more or less.

SPEAKER_00 8:13

Discipline was harsh, promotions were rare, and punishment for even relatively small offenses could be severe. Buckley, however, earned a reputation for something that would become surprisingly important later in my life. He was a very tall and larger man.

SPEAKER_04 8:30

How tall was he?

SPEAKER_00 8:31

So some I read some said he was 6'4, but other sources had said six six. Oh wow. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 8:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 8:40

So today, not super noticeably tall, but back then very tall.

SPEAKER_04 8:45

Six four to six six is still maybe he'd be taller than me, but even on his lower side an inch. So uh that's that's pretty tall, especially for late eight, late 1700s, excuse me.

SPEAKER_00 8:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:56

Um, yeah, all right.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

So around 1800, when the average British man stood somewhere around five foot six or seven.

SPEAKER_04 9:04

Yeah, he looked like an imposing beast.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

Exactly. People noticed him immediately, and his height undoubtedly helped him in the physically demanding life of a soldier.

SPEAKER_04 9:13

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 9:13

His military service eventually took him to the Never Netherlands doing during Britain's campaigns against France.

SPEAKER_04 9:19

I thought you're gonna say the Neverlands.

SPEAKER_00 9:21

The Neverlands.

SPEAKER_04 9:22

Like they never were there.

SPEAKER_00 9:23

Peter Pan took home. Sorry. The campaign was difficult. Disease spread through the ranks, and Buckley suffered an injury to his right hand that left him unable to continue serving.

SPEAKER_03 9:34

Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 9:35

No records say how he was injured. I did look that up because that was part of my research.

SPEAKER_04 9:40

Well, because I mean, obviously, you have your gun and whatever, and your musket or whatever. Can't fucking pull a trigger even or hold it or whatever. Yeah, your hand's pretty important, is what I'm trying to say.

SPEAKER_03 9:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:54

That's just odd that it took him out of the military. Yeah. That's just wild.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

So after recovering enough to leave the army, he returned to civilian life expecting to start over.

Stolen Cloth And Transportation To Australia

SPEAKER_04 10:05

Be a Fama again.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

Instead, he was convicted of receiving what? Stolen property.

SPEAKER_04 10:13

Wow. Whose property?

SPEAKER_00 10:15

Not even stealing somebody. But risking.

SPEAKER_04 10:19

So it's like, hey, can you look after this for a while? Uh-huh. I'll be back next week. And the guy never came back. He's like, oh.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

Exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 10:27

So that's how it went down.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

Yeah. So he was um convicted of receiving stolen cloth. Oh. Prosecutors argued that someone else had stolen a large roll of fabric and that Buckley knowingly accepted it afterwards. Buckley insisted he had no idea the cloth was stolen. He claimed another man had simply carried asked him to carry it, and he never questioned where it'd come from. But it's kind of impossible to know at this point.

SPEAKER_04 10:56

Well, that's the thing. You're never gonna know, but that is a wild. I mean, I kind of get it, but at the same time, it's like that's pretty your your what's uh your accusation is on shaky ground or whatever the fuck you want to say.

SPEAKER_00 11:12

That weed ain't mine.

SPEAKER_04 11:14

I don't somebody put that, somebody else put that in my pocket.

SPEAKER_00 11:18

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_04 11:18

It's not my weed.

SPEAKER_00 11:20

So unfortunately for him, England's legal system at the time wasn't particularly interested in giving convicted criminals the benefit of the doubt.

SPEAKER_04 11:28

You don't say.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

So um Buckley did escape the death penalty, but only just for something like this. The court sentenced him to transportation. Rather than spending years in an English prison prison prison, he would be shipped halfway across the world to a place most Britons could barely find on the map at the time. Because Australia. Right. Right. Crocky. We're gonna stop that randomly. I hope so. At the beginning of the 19th century, that sentence might have felt like a worse sentence than execution. Transportation meant leaving behind your family, your friends, and a very familiar part of your life. Most people never returned.

SPEAKER_04 12:12

How how old was he at this time?

SPEAKER_01 12:15

Oh, for the love of gold.

SPEAKER_04 12:18

All right.

SPEAKER_00 12:20

He was born.

SPEAKER_04 12:21

Yes, he was.

SPEAKER_00 12:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 12:23

And then he died.

SPEAKER_00 12:24

Where did I find it? In 1780.

SPEAKER_04 12:27

He was born in 1780. So 20. So this is in the 1800s right now? Okay. Gotcha. All right, all right, all right, all right.

SPEAKER_00 12:37

Okay. So for many con convicts, it was effectively a one-way trip to the far side of the world. Sure. William Buckley couldn't have known it yet, but the voyage itself was only the beginning.

SPEAKER_03 12:49

Right.

SPEAKER_00 12:50

The real test of his survival wouldn't begin until after he reached Australia and made a decision that almost guaranteed his death.

SPEAKER_04 12:58

Oh. So he had a Buckley's chance. He had a Buckley's chance of living.

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For most British convicts, transportation meant being sent to the established colony at Sydney.

SPEAKER_03 13:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:10

By 1802, New South Wales had been operating for more than a decade. That was one that's one of the states. Yep. Life there was undeniably difficult, but the settlement was at least functioning. There were buildings, farms, government officials, and a growing population trying to carve out a permanent foothold on the continent. But Buckley wasn't headed there. The British government had another problem it wanted to solve. Reports had begun filtering back to London that the French were showing increasing interest in Australia's southern coastline.

SPEAKER_03 13:44

Okay.

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Britain had claimed the continent's east coast years earlier, but claims meant very little if another European power decided to establish its own settlement first.

SPEAKER_03 13:55

Sure.

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The solution was simple in theory: establish another colony before anyone else could.

SPEAKER_03 14:01

Okay.

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In April 1803, Buckley boarded the transport ship Calcutta.

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Calcutta.

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Unlike many um convict transports, the Calcutta wasn't carrying only prisoners. Also aboard were Royal Marines under the command of Lieutenant Colonel David Collins, who supposedly started Sydney, the colony of Sydney. Oh. There were also government officials, free settlers, women, children, livestock, farming equipment, and enough supplies to build an entirely new colony from scratch. I know.

SPEAKER_04 14:36

That's I mean, that's so there as people across this fine country we live in today, like just like to talk about. Were there indigenous people there already?

SPEAKER_00 14:49

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 14:50

Oh my god, why aren't they going fucking apeshit over that?

SPEAKER_00 14:54

What do you mean?

SPEAKER_04 14:55

No one's illegal on stolen land.

SPEAKER_00 14:58

Oh, I don't know what Australians do or don't do. I don't either. I know.

SPEAKER_04 15:01

I don't even know what we do. Really blueberry.

SPEAKER_00 15:04

Really?

SPEAKER_04 15:06

At a whiff of blueberry. But no, it's like the whole world's been conquered.

SPEAKER_00 15:13

What the fuck? Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 15:14

Anyways.

SPEAKER_00 15:15

So after more than four months at sea, yuck, the expedition reached Port Phillip Bay and what is now the Australian state of Victoria. All right. Collins selected a site near present-day Sorrento and officially established a settlement in October of 1803. Okay. From the moment they arrived, almost everything seemed to go wrong. The soil wasn't nearly as fertile as they hoped. Oh boy. Fresh water was surprisingly scarce. Timber suitable for construction weren't as plentiful as expected. Farming looked difficult, supplies were limited, and many many of the people who had just endured months aboard crowded ships were already exhausted before the real work could even begin.

SPEAKER_04 16:00

So, and I'm not saying you would know this answer, just asking you a question. Why the fuck would they assume any of that? Oh, well, we thought there'd be more trees here.

SPEAKER_00 16:12

I think they were just being hopeful and then just got disappointed.

SPEAKER_04 16:15

I mean, maybe I don't know. Do a preliminary investigation.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

Yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 16:21

Like, uh, we wanted to do this because the French are coming, but yeah, not a good spot. Exactly. Let them fucking have it.

SPEAKER_00 16:28

Exactly.

SPEAKER_04 16:28

Okay, that's fucking dumb.

SPEAKER_00 16:30

So to make matters worse, nobody really knew if this location had any long-term future. It wasn't just the convicts who were struggling, soldiers, officers, and other settlers all face the same reality. Wow. Every building had to be constructed by hand, food had to be rationed carefully, and every mistake mattered.

SPEAKER_04 16:49

How many cows do you think they lost on their voyage?

SPEAKER_00 16:52

Cows?

SPEAKER_04 16:53

Yeah, because they brought cattle with, right?

SPEAKER_00 16:55

Yeah, they did say livestock. Oh, I wonder how many died. I don't know, but I feel like I have a hair in my mouth. Well, you do have a lot of cats. So Buckley had traded an English prison for a settlement that felt like one. The convicts worked under constant supervision, performing backbreaking labor, while living with the knowledge that escape into the surrounding bush was considered almost suicidal.

SPEAKER_03 17:20

Right.

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European knowledge of this part of Australia was incredibly limited. Beyond the edge of the settlement lay thousands of square miles of unfamiliar country inhabited by Aboriginal peoples whose languages, customs, and territories the the British barely understood. Of course. Why would they? And of course, to the colonists, the wilderness was terrifying.

SPEAKER_04 17:42

Yeah, because it it's, like you said, unfamiliar.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

New, yeah. Stories circulated about people disappearing into the bush, never to be seen again. Some were believed to have died from thirst, others thought to have starved. Sure.

The Escape And A Solo Trek

SPEAKER_00 17:56

But then on December 27th, 1803, Buckley and several other convicts quietly slipped away from the settlement, hoping to escape before anyone realized they were gone. Uh-oh. Exactly how many men fled depends on the source. Sure. Most accounts suggest that there were eight in total, although not all records agree.

SPEAKER_04 18:17

What's the biggest number you came across? Eight. Oh, that is the biggest number? Okay.

SPEAKER_00 18:21

Um, what they did agree on was that the plan had almost no chance of succeeding.

SPEAKER_04 18:26

Had a Buckley's chance.

SPEAKER_00 18:27

The escapees carried very little with them. Well, they had no maps, no pack animals, no detailed understanding of the landscape, and no realistic destination. They didn't even know where they're going.

SPEAKER_04 18:39

No, why would they?

SPEAKER_00 18:40

Some apparently believe that they could simply walk north until they reached Sydney, which in today's drive time is 10 hours long. Oh fuck it. We'll just walk there.

SPEAKER_04 18:54

Well, and and I can't imagine this is a recent thing for Australia. There's a lot of deadly critters on that island. Giant quantum it. Sure are. I mean, all right. All right. But I I wouldn't want to like, oh, that looks like a nice spider and like bites your face off or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 19:18

We do actually talk a little bit about that. Oh fuck. Not spiders in particular, just not knowing what's poisonous and what's not.

SPEAKER_04 19:25

Well, right. Yeah. I mean, I still don't know what poison ivy is. Three leaves, am I right?

SPEAKER_00 19:30

They all have three leaves. I know. So in 1803, this trek to Sydney was basically impossible. Right. Sydney lay hundreds of miles away through terrain no European has successfully crossed on foot. No, of course not. Between Buckley and the colony were mountain ranges, rivers, dense bush, unfamiliar wildlife, and environmental capable of killing experienced explorers, let alone escape prisoners carrying almost nothing. Right. It didn't take long for reality to catch up with the group.

SPEAKER_04 20:04

I can't imagine it would have taken taken long at all.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

They didn't have Crocodile Dundee. Paul Hogan. They need Paul Hogan.

SPEAKER_04 20:13

I love those movies when I was younger. Oh yeah. I mean, I still liked the original one. Oh, such a good movie.

SPEAKER_00 20:27

It is great. So within days, arguments broke out over whether where they should go. Food became scarce almost immediately, and the physical exhaustion of traveling through rough country began wearing everyone down. Every mile seemed harder than the last, and every decision carried the possibility of leading them farther from water, water, or shelter.

SPEAKER_04 20:47

I get worn down driving a car somewhere, let alone fucking doing this. So yeah, no shit.

SPEAKER_00 20:56

So the optimism that had started at their escape began to disappear rapidly.

SPEAKER_04 21:01

I'm sure there was a highlight.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 21:05

I don't know why I'm talking like that. Some old New York gangster, but um, but yeah, you know, the excitement, like, hey, we we escaped, let's go start our new lives or whatever. What what did they think was gonna happen? Let's just I don't think they knew. Let's just pretend they made it to Sydney. They didn't need to drive 10 hours, let alone 10 years to walk there, or whatever the fuck it takes, because god it'd take me 10 years. Just like, oh cool, man, you did it. Now what? You beat the game, you're free. There's still like British officials there. Yeah. Who are you? Um I Bill Buck. Bill Buck. Who? Don't worry about it. I mean I I I would love to know what went through their mind. Like, all right, cool, we got step one done, escape. Step two, start a new live. Yeah. Okay. What does that look like? Yeah, what does that look like to you, Bill Buck?

SPEAKER_00 22:05

So one by one, the men started making different choices. Some decided the safest option was to return to the settlement and hope for mercy.

SPEAKER_04 22:15

I'm sorry, I took a wrong turn. Got lost. Did not mean to escape.

SPEAKER_00 22:20

Others continued on different routes, convinced they could still somehow reach civilization. And Buckley decided that if he would have returned, punishment was almost guaranteed. Why? If he kept because he was a convict. Well, right. If he kept walking, there was ever a reason to believe he'd never be seen again. And for some reason he chose the second option.

SPEAKER_04 22:40

Well, I mean, you have the way your options are, and they're literally as continue being a prisoner and building the shit for people whatever, blah blah blah. Or try and make it. But I'm pretty sure you had a Buckley's chance on that.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

So when William Buckley watched the last of his companions disappear, he crossed this invisible line of options.

SPEAKER_02 23:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:06

Up until that point, he had still been an escaped convict traveling through a group. There had been other voices to argue with, other eyes searching for water, and other people sharing the little food that they could find. Now there was only him.

SPEAKER_04 23:19

Well, you know, one mouth to feed is better than up to eight. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 23:24

So Bucker Bucker. Buckley wandered aimlessly for days. Followed the coastline wherever he could, and it gave him one less thing to think about. The sea became his only landmark. If he kept the water on one side, at least he knew he wasn't walking in circles.

SPEAKER_04 23:42

Right.

SPEAKER_00 23:42

But that didn't solve the food problem.

SPEAKER_04 23:46

No, I mean, Buckley's gotta eat.

SPEAKER_00 23:50

The supplies the escapees had carried disappeared almost immediately. Buckley had no experience hunting Australian animals, and nearly everything around him was unfamiliar.

SPEAKER_04 24:01

Did he have experience hunting English animals? I don't know. I don't think so. I mean, he was a farmer. Also, what is he gonna hunt with? Lommy, you sharpen the stick, yeah. So plants go into that voice.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

Plants that looked edible might have been poisonous. Animals behave differently than anything he encountered in England. Even finding finding fresh water was a constant challenge, especially during the Australian summer. It's difficult to overstate how alien this landscape must have seemed to him.

SPEAKER_04 24:32

Could you imagine coming across a fucking kangaroo?

SPEAKER_00 24:37

They hop here.

SPEAKER_04 24:39

Oh well, I heard someone was talking about a kangaroo. I don't remember what exactly they saw, so I'm probably gonna butcher this, and I don't remember who was who said it was a video I saw. But it's like basically like a rabbit and a donkey fucked because rabbits can hop and it looks like it's got a good squirt on face or whatever. I think that's what they said. Again, I'm probably butchering it. But it's like, could you imagine good old Bill Buck just walking through the bush and like oh Croikey, what is that?

SPEAKER_00 25:08

I know. Literally, my next sentence, I said, Imagine being dropped into another world where none of the trees look familiar, the birds sound different, and the mammals hop instead of run.

SPEAKER_04 25:24

And they box too. And they don't even use a stick.

SPEAKER_00 25:29

Oh my goodness. Okay, so Buckley survived the first days by eating whatever he could identify with reasonable confidence.

SPEAKER_04 25:35

That would be so I mean, yeah, different times, whatever. Take today, Bradley, and put him in that. I'd be like, oh fucking know. I know. I don't even eat vegetables, I'm really fucked.

SPEAKER_01 25:50

I bet you would.

SPEAKER_04 25:53

I bet you I wouldn't.

SPEAKER_00 25:55

So shellfish collected on the long the shore was one staple. Berries when he found them, roots that seemed safe enough to risk.

SPEAKER_04 26:03

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

Yeah, it wasn't much.

SPEAKER_04 26:05

No, but again, you take what you can get. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 26:09

So the physical effects began to show rather quickly. His clothes deteriorated and after constant exposure to the elements, his boots were out over the rough ground. So his boots were not made for walking. They weren't made for this long a walking. Every day became an exhausting cycle of walking, searching, and hoping that the next dream hadn't dried up. And then Buckley realized that he was not alone.

SPEAKER_03 26:36

Oh shit.

SPEAKER_00 26:37

At various points during his journey, he caught signs that other people had been nearby. Smoke rising in the distance, footprints, abandoned campsites, evidence that someone knew this land a little bit better than he ever would.

SPEAKER_03 26:51

Right.

SPEAKER_00 26:51

For a European in 1803, that was probably an unsettling realization.

SPEAKER_04 26:56

Uh yeah, because what if they're hunting him?

SPEAKER_00 26:59

The British knew Aboriginal Australians lived throughout the continent, but they understood very little about the hundreds of distinct nations, sure, languages, and cultures that already called Australia home.

SPEAKER_03 27:12

Right.

SPEAKER_00 27:13

Many colonists viewed an encounter with Aboriginal people as something to be feared. Buckley had no idea what would happen if they meet, and he wasn't sure that he had a choice either.

SPEAKER_04 27:24

Well, why would he know? I mean, seriously.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

Weeks had passed since his escape.

SPEAKER_04 27:30

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 27:30

He was becoming weaker, thinner, and more desperate. Sure. If he continued wandering on his own, this death seemed increasingly likely.

SPEAKER_04 27:38

It was imminent, yeah.

The Spear And Meeting The Wathaurong

SPEAKER_00 27:40

While traveling through the landscape, Buckley came across what appeared to be a grave. Resting nearby was a spear. To Buckley, it looked abandoned, so he picked it up.

SPEAKER_04 27:52

Stolen goods. That's what he's there for in the first place. Shit.

SPEAKER_00 27:56

It was given to me.

SPEAKER_04 27:57

I swear.

SPEAKER_00 27:58

I didn't know it was stolen.

SPEAKER_04 27:59

No one told me that.

SPEAKER_00 28:00

It's an understandable mistake for someone who knew nothing about the local customs, but may have been the single most important decision of his life.

SPEAKER_04 28:09

So was it left there for the person who was buried? Yes. And that was a no-no because that was a sacred thing or whatever? Yes. Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 28:16

Because not long after Buckley encountered a group of aboriginal people from the the my apologies. You're good. Watherung. Watherung. Can you spell it for me? Just so I. W-A-T-H-A-U-R-O-N-G. Okay. Authorung. All right. It is, they are one of like many nations of the larger Cullen alliance in southeastern Australia. Okay. He froze, they froze, neither spoke either's language, neither side knew what the other wasn't like had intended. Yeah. And for a while they all just kind of simply stared at each other.

SPEAKER_04 28:57

But then for some reason, the Spider-Man meme came to mind. Like them pointing at each other. Have you ever seen that? I don't think so.

SPEAKER_00 29:07

But then several members of the group started to become visibly emotional.

SPEAKER_04 29:12

Emotional. Oh, because they saw the spear.

SPEAKER_00 29:14

According to a later account, they noticed the spear he was carrying and began examining both it and the towering stranger standing before them. Sure. Buckley's exceptional height already made him stand out, but the spear added an additional layer.

SPEAKER_03 29:30

Right.

SPEAKER_00 29:30

The spear he would learn had belonged to a recently deceased elder. Oh. Some members of the group believed this impossibly tall stranger carrying the elder spear might somehow have been connected with his return.

SPEAKER_04 29:45

Right. They thought he was back from the dead or reincarnated or whatever they believed in kind of stuff. I shouldn't have gave you that other beer.

SPEAKER_01 29:58

Do you do you need it?

SPEAKER_04 30:38

So pardon me, people.

SPEAKER_00 30:41

Some scholars believe that he may have misunderstood the cultural significance of the encounter, while others think parts of the account were simplified or reshaped over time. Sure. Oh, I bet. Instead of killing the escaped convict standing in front of them, they took him in. For a man who had expected every stranger to become another's threat, it was the beginning of life of a life he never could have imagined.

SPEAKER_04 31:07

By everyone basically treat him like one of theirs, one of their own. Yeah, because they they thought he was. So did he learn their language?

SPEAKER_00 31:15

He did.

SPEAKER_04 31:15

Nice. And then he tell them eventually, like, I don't know what you're talking about, man. I just came across it. I'm sure no one told me it was stolen.

SPEAKER_00 31:24

So by every European expectation, William Buckley should have died somewhere in the Australian bush. Instead, he had just met the people who would teach him how to survive there for the next 32 years.

SPEAKER_04 31:37

So he died in 1835.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

I didn't say he died after 32 years.

SPEAKER_04 31:42

He left?

SPEAKER_00 31:43

He left.

SPEAKER_04 31:44

Did he go back home?

SPEAKER_00 31:46

Not really, no.

SPEAKER_04 31:47

What is home?

SPEAKER_00 31:48

Home was England, but no, he did not go back to England.

SPEAKER_04 31:51

He lived there longer than he did in England. That

Learning Survival Over 32 Years

SPEAKER_04 31:55

was his home.

SPEAKER_00 31:56

So Buckley's survival didn't suddenly become easy because he had found other people. It was just a different challenge. So he was now living among people whose language he didn't understand, whose customs were entirely unfamiliar, and the knowledge Buckley was learning hadn't been invented in his single lifetime or even a handful of generations. They had been around for thousands of these people were around for thousands of years. And they had been living in this part of Australia long before the first pyramids were even built in Egypt.

SPEAKER_04 32:26

Do you do you kind of think it was somewhere along the lines like the Dunka, like in Dances with Wolves?

SPEAKER_00 32:31

I have no idea. I don't know. That's right. You've never seen Dances with Wolves. Didn't I make you watch that once or something?

SPEAKER_04 32:38

We talked about we talked about watching it, but you never watched it. That's right. I thought I made you watch it, but no. No, it was after I said, We gotta watch that. It's really good. I watched it.

SPEAKER_00 32:49

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_04 32:50

Yeah, that's right. Forgot about that. Anyways.

SPEAKER_00 32:53

So everything that these people did had a purpose, but Buckley had no way of knowing what that purpose was. Sure. So imagine trying to build an entirely new life without understanding a single word anyone was saying.

SPEAKER_04 33:04

I'm sure. I mean, you're gonna start to pick up on things, and they're also gonna pick up on him as well.

SPEAKER_00 33:08

Yeah. So at the start, it was all entirely observation.

SPEAKER_04 33:13

Right.

SPEAKER_00 33:13

Buckley watched where people walked, what foods they gathered, how that they prepared them, and when they chose to move camp. Every day became a lesson in survival. So they were a nomadic tribe then? Yes, basically. Yes. They um went around Australia according to the season that they were in.

SPEAKER_04 33:32

Oh and are you still in summer there?

SPEAKER_00 33:36

Because it's they're like winter birds, you know, like we're gonna go to Florida during the winter, and then we're gonna come back uphill for the summer. Oh, they're their Christmas is during summer, though.

SPEAKER_04 33:44

So weird.

SPEAKER_00 33:46

If someone pointed towards a plant, he learned that it was safe to eat. If they ignored him another, he would leave it alone.

SPEAKER_03 33:52

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:53

When hunters disappeared into the bush carrying spears, he would follow quietly, watching techniques that had been refined over countless generations. Sure. The knowledge he absorbed over the following years would have been impossible for him to discover on his own. Right.

SPEAKER_04 34:07

Oh no, God, he would never have been able to do that.

SPEAKER_00 34:09

Yeah. So the Watherung understood that survival wasn't about overpowering nature, it was about understanding it.

SPEAKER_04 34:16

Being one with nature.

SPEAKER_00 34:17

So they knew which roots could be dug at different times of the year.

SPEAKER_04 34:21

That's isn't that wild? Yeah. But isn't it also sad that we know like nothing of this? Yeah. Not saying specifically Australian things or whatever, just in general. And it's just so like so many people just well, I'll just go to the store and buy this other really highly processed shit. Don't get me wrong, there's a ton of it that I like too. But it's just when I don't know shit about. I can't even sell a button back on my pants. I gotta bring it to my fucking mom.

SPEAKER_00 34:46

It's like I have to take mine to Tara. Tara sold this.

SPEAKER_04 34:50

Shout out to Tara. But it's like we we lose, we've lost so much. Every generation loses that because we live in a replaceable world, unfortunately. Like, oh, they're broke by another one. It's like nobody fixes shit anymore. It's just so dumb, and everything's so cheaply made so that you can buy spend more money.

SPEAKER_00 35:09

I love how you keep looking around my room, like what you're saying, everything's so cheaply made.

SPEAKER_04 35:14

Well, I mean, anyways.

SPEAKER_00 35:19

So um they knew where fresh water could still be found when streams dried up. Sure. They recognized the call of birds that warned of predators or signaled changes in the weather. I've took off again.

SPEAKER_04 35:32

That's pretty wild. That bird just told me it's gonna be a nice day. It's like, what the fuck? That's so wild.

SPEAKER_00 35:42

So they do when fish would gather along the coast and when certain plants would produce fruit. Even fire was used deliberately to manage the escape, encouraging new growth and making hunting more effective.

SPEAKER_04 35:54

So it was a controlled burn.

SPEAKER_00 35:56

Exactly. And to Buckley, this was magical. Well, because he'd never seen any of this before. So slowly, almost without realizing, Buckley stopped trying to survive despite the Australian bush, and began surviving because he was understanding it.

SPEAKER_04 36:11

Yeah, he was he's literally he was picking up what they were throwing down.

SPEAKER_00 36:16

Yeah, his appearance changed as well. His clothes had fallen apart long before.

SPEAKER_04 36:22

So do you start wearing it like a whatever the tribes people were? Yep.

SPEAKER_00 36:27

European clothing gave away two garments made from animal skins, practical for the climate and the life he now lived.

SPEAKER_03 36:33

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 36:33

He learned how to throw spears, he learned to track animals by signs so subtle he probably would have walked past them a hundred times during his first weeks in Australia. He did. He learned how to travel long distances without exhausting himself, and how to recognize that and how to recognize seasonal patterns that determined where food food could be found.

SPEAKER_03 36:55

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 36:55

So little by little, the sk the skills had been that had kept him alive as a British soldier became less useful than the lessons he was learning now from his new community.

SPEAKER_04 37:04

Well, it's a it's a completely different world he's in.

SPEAKER_00 37:07

So when Buckley first arrived, he was almost certainly viewed as an outsider.

SPEAKER_03 37:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:11

Um, trust isn't something that's handed out simply because someone is hungry, it had to be earned. Sure. And while we don't have a detailed day-to-day account of how Buckley gained that trust, the fact that he remained with the Watharung for more than three decades tells us that he became part of their community.

SPEAKER_04 37:28

He clearly gained that trust because they would have cast him out, killed him, whatever, a long fucking time ago, not 32 years later.

SPEAKER_00 37:38

But that doesn't mean that every day was peaceful. Buckley describes disputes between neighboring groups, ceremonial gatherings, long journeys across the landscape, and life controlled by seasons rather than calendars. Of course. He witnessed births and deaths and celebrations and conflicts. Years passed, not according to dates, but according to migrations, harvests, and the return of familiar weather. Eventually, the man who had once expected to spend the rest of his life in an English English prison probably stopped counting how many years had passed. There wasn't much point to it.

SPEAKER_04 38:13

Well, again, you know, like, well, I've been here for five winters now or whatever. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:18

It's not like he was five winters, not five years, years. Yeah, or five years and two months. Yeah, he wouldn't.

SPEAKER_04 38:25

Right, right, right. It's it's not it's not a specific, you're not looking at a goddamn calendar, is what I'm saying. So it's just like, all right, well, we're preparing for this next season. They don't care, he's like, uh, in three months, yeah, you know, whatever. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:38

So so Buckley then started forgetting his English. After years of speaking the Walterong language every day, the the words of his childhood was no longer becoming easy. Sure. The language he had grown up grown up speaking slowly slipped into the background, replacing the one he needed to survive with. Yep. By now, everyone at the failed English settlement assumed he had died years earlier. Of course. As far as the colonial government was concerned, Bill Buck no longer existed. Yep. And ironically, for the first time since stepping aboard the Calcutta, he was finally free.

SPEAKER_04 39:12

William Buckley didn't exist. Now it's Bill Buck. Now it's Bill Buck. I'm Bill Buck. Nice to meet you. That's funny.

SPEAKER_00 39:20

He describes seasonal movement between camps rather than permanent villages. Families traveled.

SPEAKER_04 39:26

Imagine.

SPEAKER_00 39:27

No.

SPEAKER_04 39:27

That would be fucking wild. It'd be like, all right, Nathan, time to burn the house down. Let's go move over there. It's like, what?

SPEAKER_00 39:34

What families travel to take advantage of the changing food sources to cats? And then they would return to places that they knew would provide what they needed in different seasons.

SPEAKER_04 39:47

It's not like they had permanent structures like a house. If anything, they would have huts and stuff that were probably pretty crude.

SPEAKER_00 39:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 39:56

And I don't want to say movable because they probably didn't wouldn't have taken it with them, I'm sure. But yeah. I mean, it makes sense. They went where they needed to go to survive throughout the year. Yeah. So it totally makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 40:11

Yeah. So he participated in hunting expeditions and learned how to how cooperation often meant often meant the difference between success and failure. Kangaroos, emus, fish, cellfish, shellfish too. Um, possums, roots, bulbs, and native plants all became a part of his diet. Did you say selfish? I did, which is why I said shellfish too.

SPEAKER_04 40:34

I got that. I just wanted to confirm.

SPEAKER_00 40:37

Like every human society, though, disagreements existed.

SPEAKER_04 40:40

Do you think do you think he ever got to see a dingo eat the baby?

SPEAKER_00 40:45

He recounted disputes between different groups that occasionally erupted into violent confrontations.

SPEAKER_04 40:51

Did he have to partake in these?

SPEAKER_00 40:53

Um, I don't think so. Okay. But I'm not certain. You go back. We'd have this. Spears were thrown, people were injured, and lives were lost. Buckley himself sometimes found that his enormous size makes found his enormous size making him impossible to ignore. Standing well over six feet tall, he remained an extraordinary figure. After years among the Waltherung, strangers who encountered him reportedly reacted with surprise.

SPEAKER_04 41:27

Well, he's such an an anomaly.

SPEAKER_00 41:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 41:30

For the group that he's with, like one of these things is not like the other. He's like, you don't belong here.

SPEAKER_00 41:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 41:40

And then whatever their dialogue to be, they don't work in better.

SPEAKER_00 41:43

So as the years stretch into decades, memories of England became increasingly difficult to hold on to. There were no books, no newspapers, no letters, no clocks. And when he escaped from the settlement in 1803, King George III was on the British throne. Thomas Jefferson had just completed the low uh the Louisiana Purchase in the United States.

SPEAKER_04 42:03

Fucking he already did.

SPEAKER_00 42:04

And Napoleon hadn't yet crowned himself Emperor of France. By the time Europeans entered Buckley's life again, more than three decades later, this time had all passed. Children who had been born the year he escaped were now adults with children of their own.

SPEAKER_04 42:18

Isn't that wild to think about?

SPEAKER_00 42:20

Many of the people he had who had known him in England were likely dead.

SPEAKER_04 42:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:24

As far as history was concerned, William Buckley was also dead.

SPEAKER_04 42:28

Yeah, but Bill Buck emerges.

Returning To Settlers And Becoming A Guide

SPEAKER_00 42:30

Then in 1835, um, something he saw something that he hadn't seen in over 30 years. Another European European ships.

SPEAKER_04 42:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:39

At first, Buckley reportedly watched from a distance. He had spent decades avoiding European settlements, and therefore there was no reason to assume that these newcomers would welcome him.

SPEAKER_03 42:49

Right.

SPEAKER_00 42:50

For all he knew, he was still an escaped convict. Perhaps they would arrest him the moment they saw him. You know, we don't know.

SPEAKER_04 42:56

Which you would think at this point, being gone for 32 fucking years, it's like, nah, dude, you're good.

SPEAKER_00 43:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 43:03

I mean, what how could you even be like, no, you gotta go back to prison? It's like, fuck off. No, I don't. I'm gonna go be with my group here.

SPEAKER_00 43:10

Yeah. So the newcomers, meanwhile, had no idea that a European man had been living among the Watherong all this time. The settlement established by David Collins had failed only months after Buckley's escape.

SPEAKER_04 43:22

Oh, really?

SPEAKER_00 43:23

It had been abandoned, and its residents moved to Van Diemen's Land.

SPEAKER_04 43:28

Van Diemen's?

SPEAKER_00 43:29

Mm-hmm. Which is modern-day Tasmania.

SPEAKER_04 43:32

That's where the devils are.

SPEAKER_00 43:34

The colonial government had written off Port Phillip as a failure. Now another group of settlers had arrived, led by men eager to establish a new community around the shores of Port Phillip Bay. Okay. One of those was John Batman. No joke. Batman? Batman had been negotiating with local Aboriginal leaders for land on behalf of an association of settlers. Do you think anyone? To be able to let that one go. I was still trying to keep talking. Just in case.

SPEAKER_04 44:05

Do you think someone ever went up to him and went, who are you? Batman. I mean, really? That was his name? Yes. That's fucking wild. I'm Batman. Who are you? What was his first name? John. So lame. Probably with an H too. With an H. I don't know what I mean by that. I'm just being silly.

SPEAKER_00 44:45

Probably with a fucking age. Okay, so during these early meetings, uh, stories began circulating about an unusually tall aboriginal man who looked different. Before long, Buckley decided to approach them. The settlers seen a towering figure walking towards them wearing animal skins with long hair and a long beard with weathered skin. And then he starts speaking English. Not well.

SPEAKER_04 45:10

Well, again, he's he hasn't really spoken English in 30 years. So I mean, it it's it's gonna come back a little bit, like riding a bike, but um not well. Yeah, yeah, it's gonna be broken, probably mixed up a little bit with his new language and such, whatever.

SPEAKER_00 45:29

But but it wasn't enough to explain that he wasn't an aboriginal hunter. No, he was a British convict who escaped 32 years earlier, and for a moment, nobody quite knew what to believe. If someone walked into your backyard today claiming they escaped prison during George Washington's presidency, you probably have a few questions. So the settlers how are you still alive? So settlers were stunned. There was every reason to be skeptical. The man standing before them certainly looked like someone who had spent years living in the Australian bush, but 32 years of it, this sounded impossible. Sounded like a Bugley's chance.

SPEAKER_04 46:06

Sounded like a made-up fucking story.

SPEAKER_00 46:08

Most escaped convicts died within days or weeks. Even experienced explorers struggled to survive an unfamiliar country.

SPEAKER_04 46:16

But he got lucky and he found a tribe that brought him in. I mean, how often does that happen? Not often.

SPEAKER_00 46:23

Buckley then began then became wow. Buckley began naming people. He described the expedition led by David Collins. He remembered the Calcutta. He recalled details about the abandoned settlement at Sullivan Bay that few people outside the original expect expedition could have known. Right. And piece by piece, the story all they believed checked out. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 46:48

Yeah, they understood. This guy's legit.

SPEAKER_00 46:50

Legit, yeah. So William Buckley had somehow survived longer outside European society than anyone had imagined. And for Buckley, however, the reunion was a little less triumphant than it might sound. The English language returned slowly but awkwardly. After speaking the warwath uh Watherung language almost exclusively for more than three decades, many English words had become difficult to remember. Sure. He could still communicate, but conversations um required effort.

SPEAKER_04 47:21

Do you think I I guess we don't even know if he could do this originally because it was sparse back then. Could he write?

SPEAKER_00 47:30

I never saw anything about writing.

SPEAKER_04 47:32

I wonder.

SPEAKER_00 47:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 47:33

Because and again, there's a good chance because of his upbringing that he might not have even been able to write anyways. It was just a common thing back then.

SPEAKER_00 47:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 47:42

So you didn't read anything about writing. I wonder if, like you know, I always remember cartoons like sign your name on the line. It's just an X. That was like a real thing, too, which is weird. Yeah. But anyways.

SPEAKER_00 47:56

Yeah. So his habits had changed as well. European customs that most settlers considered ordinary were now unfamiliar.

SPEAKER_03 48:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:04

The routines of colonial life, the schedules, the expectations, the buildings, the fences, even the clothing was a little was strange for him.

SPEAKER_04 48:12

Even the what? The clothes. Oh, it's not the word I heard in my brain. I apologize. Clothing, you said. Yeah. I gotcha.

SPEAKER_00 48:19

Okay. So, in many ways, Buckley probably experienced culture shock in twice in one lifetime. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 48:27

It's kind of weird. Because, like, yeah, the culture shock of joining this tribe or Aborigines, whatever it was. Um, and then coming back to his original, it's like, I don't know what to do here. Yeah. What do I do with my hands?

SPEAKER_00 48:41

So the settlers quickly realized that Buckley possessed something valuable.

SPEAKER_04 48:46

His height.

SPEAKER_00 48:46

He could communicate with the Watherung. Sure. At a time when there were many misunderstandings between Europeans and Aboriginal peoples that could have been deadly consequences. Buckley s suddenly became one of the very few people of um translating not only words but also customs and expectations. So he understood how each side viewed the other because he had lived in both worlds. Sure. For a time, Buckley worked as an interpreter and guide, helping the newcomers establish relationships with the local Aboriginal communities. Okay. And if both sides understood one another, perhaps they could avoid unnecessary violence, right?

SPEAKER_02 49:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 49:29

So unfortunately, it rested on an assumption that wouldn't hold true for very long. The number of European settlers continued to grow.

SPEAKER_04 49:37

Well, and that's the thing. There's they're continuously coming.

SPEAKER_00 49:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 49:41

You know, and and they're like, opportunity. And their aboriginals are like, fuck.

SPEAKER_00 49:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 49:48

Or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 49:49

I don't know what it is. What had begun as a small settlement soon became a rapidly expanding colony.

SPEAKER_03 49:55

Right.

SPEAKER_00 49:56

More ships arrived, more buildings appeared, more land was claimed for farms and livestock. Fences spread across across counties, nope, countries, the aboriginal communities had managed for thousands of years without them. Buckley watched these changes unfold with a perspective almost no one else possessed. Sure. He understood why settlers wanted land. He also said understood exactly what that land meant to the people who were already living there.

SPEAKER_03 50:23

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 50:23

As tensions increased, Buckley found himself caught in an impossible situation. Sure. Some settlers questioned his loyalties, truly where his loyalties truly lay after spending 32 years with the Watherung.

SPEAKER_04 50:37

I mean, I feel like it lays with the Watherung because again, he spent more time with him, them, than he did with Europeans.

SPEAKER_00 50:45

And the Europeans jailed him. Yeah, because he and the Watherung were like, come with us.

SPEAKER_04 50:50

Because he was holding a stolen cloth that he was like, I don't know, this is fucking stolen. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 50:57

At the same time, many Aboriginal people understandably became suspicious of the man who now spent so much time with the newcomers. See, that sucks. Buckley hadn't changed sides, he was just in the middle.

SPEAKER_03 51:10

Right.

SPEAKER_00 51:10

The community that had saved his life now faced pressures unlike anything they had experienced before.

SPEAKER_03 51:15

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 51:15

The society he had been born into had finally found him again, but it wasn't the England that he remembered, and he wasn't the man who had left it.

SPEAKER_04 51:22

No, of course not.

SPEAKER_00 51:23

There was no path back path back to the life he'd once known, and there was no way to restore the world the Watherong had known before the settlers arrived. Right. So the two worlds that had um defined Buckley's life were beginning to collide, and there was very little one man could do to stop it.

SPEAKER_03 51:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:40

So recognizing that his usefulness as an interpreter was fading and perhaps exhausted by living between two identities, Buckley eventually chose to leave Port Phillip.

Memoir, Legacy, And The Sign-Off

SPEAKER_04 51:52

And to do what?

SPEAKER_00 51:53

He accepted a position with the colonial government and later moved to Van Diem's Land, Tasmania. Yeah. He worked as a storekeeper and later held other government positions, living a life far wider than the one that made him famous. That's wild. He married Julia Egers in 1840. The couple never had any children.

SPEAKER_04 52:13

Well, he would have been fucking 1840, he would have been 60.

SPEAKER_00 52:21

Yeah, he was born. Yes, he was born in 1780. For some reason, I was like, no, he was born in 1800, but that's where the story starts. Yeah, 1780. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 52:29

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:32

Shut up, I know my story.

SPEAKER_03 52:33

No, I know my path.

SPEAKER_00 52:36

So Buckley remained curious wherever he went. People wanted to hear the story of the convict who had vanished into the Australian wilderness and remained and returned three decades later later speaking in Aboriginal language. So wild. Eventually, his recollections were dictated and published, giving historians an invaluable um window into both his life and the Watherong community that had taken him in. Yep. Like many memoirs written decades after the events that it describes, historian approached parts of Buckley's um account carefully.

SPEAKER_03 53:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:12

Yeah. Details have become blurred. Some stories grew in the retelling.

SPEAKER_04 53:17

I always do.

SPEAKER_00 53:18

Yeah. Even so, many of the broad events he described have been supported by colonial records and the testimony of people who met him after his return. Sure. William Buckley lived another 21 years after returning to European society. Okay. Compared to everything that had come before him, those years were quite quiet. Sure.

SPEAKER_04 53:38

I would imagine so.

SPEAKER_00 53:39

Yeah, he spent much of his later life in Tasmania, working ordinary jobs, occasionally sharing his remarkable story with curious listeners who could hardly believe it. In 1852, his recollections were published with the help of newspaper editor John Morgan, preserving one of the earliest first-hand European accounts of the life among the Watherong people. On January 30th, 1856, William Buckley died in Hobart at the age of 675. His obituary mentioned the escape that had made him famous, but obviously couldn't capture what really happened. Sure. He survived become because the Watherong people chose compassion over fear.

SPEAKER_03 54:18

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 54:18

They took in a starving stranger who couldn't speak their language, taught him how to live in a country he never could have understood on his own, and is attempt and accepted him into their community for more than three decades.

SPEAKER_04 54:29

Yeah, I mean the Watherung are really the heroes of the story because he would be fucking dead and he would have had a Buckley's chance of living.

SPEAKER_00 54:36

And let's get back to that. Yeah, a Buckley's chance. Yeah. An Australian phrase that um people still use use today. Um, most people believe it does refer to William Buckley and the impossibility of his survival. Okay. We'll probably never know for sure, right? But the saying really does trace back to him. He was the man who supposedly had no chance at all and ended up surviving for 32 years in one of the most unfamiliar environments on earth. And that is the story of William Buckley.

SPEAKER_04 55:04

You had no chance in hell. You literally had a Buckley's chance to survive, and well, Buckley did.

SPEAKER_00 55:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 55:12

All because some nice indigenous people took him in.

SPEAKER_00 55:18

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_04 55:19

I mean Yay Watheron.

SPEAKER_00 55:22

I'm Batman.

SPEAKER_04 55:24

John Batman with an H.

SPEAKER_00 55:28

Well, I suppose.

SPEAKER_04 55:30

Alright, buffoons. That's it for today's episode.

SPEAKER_00 55:33

Buckle up because we've got another historical adventure waiting for you next time. Feeling hungry for more buffoonery? Or maybe you have a burning question or a wild historical theory for us to explore?

SPEAKER_04 55:44

Hit us up on social media. We're History Buffoons Podcast on YouTube, X, Instagram, and Facebook. You can also email us at History Buffoons Podcast at gmail.com. We are Bradley and Kate, music by Corey Akers.

SPEAKER_00 55:58

Follow us wherever you get your podcasts and turn those notifications on to stay in the loop.

SPEAKER_04 56:03

Until next time, stay curious and don't forget to rate and review us.

SPEAKER_00 56:07

Remember, the buffoonery never stops.