Peter Mitchell explores phrase ‘You’ve got Buckley’s’ historic link to the Peninsula
YOU’VE probably heard the phrase “You’ve got Buckley’s” — but did you know it has a link to the Mornington Peninsula?
South East
Don't miss out on the headlines from South East . Followed categories will be added to My News.
There’s a phrase in Australia that is still widely in use today, bluntly referring to a person’s chances of success — “You’ve got Buckley’s.”
Some argue this was a pun on the name of a now defunct Melbourne department store chain, ‘Buckley & Nunn’, but the stronger theory is that it relates to a man who was once a Mornington Peninsula resident.
In October 1803, when HMS Calcutta, skippered by Lieutenant governor David Collins, anchored off what is today Sorrento to start a new settlement, 23-year-old William Buckley was on board as a convict.
In England, he’d been found guilty of receiving a stolen bolt of cloth and was sentenced to be transported for life.
Collins didn’t give the new settlement much of a chance.
Just a few months after arriving and bemoaning poor soil and a lack of freshwater, Collins told his colleagues they would be abandoning the site and heading to Hobart.
Upon hearing this news, and waiting for nightfall, Buckley and several other convicts decided to make a dash for freedom.
Hugging the coastline of the bay and using tracks made by the land’s indigenous people, the convicts made it to the vicinity of present-day Melbourne, where they decided to split up.
Tired and dehydrated, Buckley continued alone around the bay.
The rest headed northeast, hoping to reach Sydney, which they thought wasn’t far away. The men were never heard from again.
Meanwhile Collins had taken his settlement to Hobart, and assumed that the escaped convicts would all perish in the bush.
In the weeks following his escape, Buckley fed on shellfish and berries and using the bay as his guide, made it as far as the present-day Bellarine Peninsula.
Several months later, after taking a spear from a gravesite and using it as a walking stick, Buckley met a group of Wathaurung (Watourong) women, who invited him back to their camp.
Recognising the spear, they considered the big, tall man (198cm) to be the reincarnation of their dead tribal chief, and he was made most welcome.
Buckley came to learn the indigenous language and customs and was given a wife, by whom he had a daughter.
For the next 32 years he lived mostly in a hut that he built near present-day Aireys Inlet.
One day he overheard a group of indigenous men plotting to rob a visiting ship and murder the white intruders.
Buckley walked into the visitor’s camp to warn them.
Wearing kangaroo skins, carrying indigenous weapons and with long, matted hair, the wild, white man gave them a terrible fright. It was only when he showed them the letters ‘W.B.’ tattooed on his arm that it struck home. Buckley had indeed survived.
Buckley’s so-called ‘improbable’ survival led to the saying, “You’ve got Buckley’s chance”, but in fact it was further proof of how the early white settlers completely misunderstood the indigenous population.
Yes, he was given up for dead, but the truth is, once he befriended the locals and became one of them, William Buckley’s survival was never in doubt.
Later to receive an official pardon, Buckley died in Hobart in 1856, after falling from his horse-drawn buggy.
Twitter: @Peter_Mitchell7
Instagram: @peter_mitchell7
Facebook: Peter Mitchell