William Buckley (born 1776–1780 – died 30 January 1856), also known as the "wild white man", was an English bricklayer, and served in the military until 1802, when he was convicted of theft.

[2] According to an acquaintance George Russell, Buckley "was a tall, ungainly man ... and altogether his looks were not in his favour; he had a bushy head of black hair, a low forehead with overhanging eyebrows nearly concealing his small eyes, a short snub nose, a face very much marked by smallpox, and was just such a man as one would suppose fit to commit burglary or murder."

Tipping stated that "according to his easy assimilation into an unfamiliar way of life may also suggest that he was intelligent, shrewd and courageous".

[12][c] According to Buckley, he was asked by a woman to carry a roll of cloth to the garrison where his regiment was stationed, not knowing that the fabric was stolen.

[15] Buckley left England in April 1803 aboard HMS Calcutta, one of two ships sent to Port Phillip to form a new settlement under Lieutenant-Colonel David Collins.

The skilled labourers were given a degree of freedom because there was more than 600 miles (970 km) of wilderness to the nearest settlement at Sydney, which made escape treacherous.

[21] The new settlement lacked fresh water and arable soil,[20][22] and a decision was made a couple of months later[e] to abandon the site and move to Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania).

[2][22] After travelling along the coast of Port Phillip Bay to what is now Melbourne and across the plains to the Yawong Hills (now in the Shire of Buloke), the men finished the last of their rations.

[25] Over the next several days, Buckley became increasingly ill due to dehydration, starvation, and painful sores from poor nutrition.

Buckley was near death when he arrived at Aireys Inlet where he found embers from an earlier fire, fresh water, seafood, and a cave for shelter.

He stayed awhile to build back his strength and then he followed the Victorian coast south to a spot near a stream where he established a hut for himself of tree branches and seaweed.

[25] Buckley met three spear-carrying Wathaurong people, who befriended him[26] at a place called Nooraki (Mount Defiance Lookout, Wye River, Great Ocean Road).

Lonely and worn-down, he journeyed to the eastern portion of the bay in the hope that there were some English escapees who remained in the area.

He learnt to catch fish and eels, cook in their manner, skin possums and kangaroo, and make thread from animal sinew.

During the evenings, Buckley often shared his campfire with tribal members and told stories of life in England, on ships, and at war.

[36] For thirty-two years, Buckley lived among the Wallarranga tribe of the Wathaurong nation on the Bellarine Peninsula of southern Victoria.

[37][g] Living on the western side of the bay, he had access to fresh water, yam daisy (murnong), bream, seafood, and birds.

[2][40][h] A Buninyong woman, Purranmurnin Tallarwurnin, was 15 years old when she met Buckley and became his wife and she may have been the mother of his daughter.

[2][51] On 4 February 1836, William Buckley accompanied Joseph Gellibrand and his party, which included William Robertson, one of the financiers of the Port Phillip Association, on a trip west from Melbourne, heading toward Geelong, where they met with a group of Wathaurong people with whom Buckley had lived.

Buckley made towards a native well and after he had rode about 8 miles, we heard a cooey and when we arrived at the spot I witnessed one of the most pleasing and affecting sights.

[54] During the course of his career as an interpreter and mediator, he tried to manage his role working for the government while also being concerned about equitable treatment of Aboriginal people.

[2][51][55] He felt that Indigenous people and influential white men were suspicious of him and he decided to move to Van Diemen's Land.

[51] In December 1837, he left Port Phillip and on 10 January 1838 he arrived in Hobart[56] in what was then known as Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania).

[2][58] Buckley was interred at the burial ground of St George's Anglican Church, Battery Point.

[60] After his death, his widow Julia moved north to live with her daughter and son-in-law, William Jackson, and their family.

[65] As a result, the account has sometimes been dismissed as more the product of Morgan's fertile imagination than a true representation of Buckley's experiences.

Its references to the mythical Bunyip and tribe of copper-coloured, pot-bellied "Pallidurgbarrans" who supposedly lived in the Otway forests are often cited as evidence of this.

However, while acknowledging its limitations, some scholars, such as Lester Hiatt, see it as consistent with "modern understandings of Aboriginal social life".

[66] Tim Flannery suggests that Buckley's story has been "ignored or mentioned only in passing by historians" because it is "so at odds with contemporary preconceptions".

The Australian National Dictionary Centre deprecates a second theory:[69] that the expression was a pun on the name of a now defunct Melbourne department store chain, Buckley & Nunn[70] because this second explanation "appears to have arisen after the original phrase was established".