Podcast: The Dead Can't Sue (LS 37 · TOP 2.5% what is this?)
Episode: William Buckley: How an escaped convict spent 30 years with an Indigenous group
Pub date: 2026-07-27

Get Podcast Transcript →
powered by Listen411 - fast audio-to-text and summarization

Perhaps you're familiar with the phrase "Buckley's chance!". Well, it's thought that it originates from William Buckley, a man who defied all odds to escape his fate as a convict.

Buckley was a brickie from Northern England who ends up being adopted by the Wathaurong people in 1800s Victoria.

Leigh investigates the legend of Buckley’s survival, what the Wathaurong had to gain from him, and how things finally came to a head.

Psst - he also debunks a few famous convict myths we love to tell.

SOURCES

Reminiscences of James Buckley who lived for thirty years among the Wallawarro or Watourong tribes at Geelong Port Phillip, communicated by him to George Langhorne, 1837 (State Library of Victoria, Manuscripts Collection)

Bonwick, James (1856). William Buckley: the wild white man, and his Port Phillip black friends, (Melbourne)

Morgan, John (1856). The life and adventures of William Buckley: thirty-two years a wanderer amongst the Aborigines (Melbourne)

Flannery, Tim (ed) (2017). The Life and Adventures of William Buckley (Melbourne: Text Publishing)

Tipping, Marjorie (1988). Convicts Unbound (Melbourne: Viking O’Neill)

McKinnon, Crystal and McLisky, Clare (2022). “Settler Colonial Emotions... in the William Buckley Story” in The Routledge History of Emotions

Tudehope, CM (1962). “William Buckley” in Victorian Historical Magazine,1962 Tipping, Marjorie (2006). William Buckley (1780–1856), Australian Dictionary of Biography

Hosted by Alecia Simmonds and Leigh Boucher
Supervising Producer: Hannah Reich
Development Producer: Beverley Wang
Executive Producers: Clare Rawlinson and Eric George
Head of ABC Audio on Demand: Jessica Radburn
Theme: Martin Peralta
Artwork: Gabriel Virata-Alves
Sound Engineering: Ross Richardson

The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from ABC Australia, which is the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Listen Notes, Inc.