14 June 2020
Buckley’s chance is Australian and New Zealand slang meaning no chance at all. The origin of the phrase is unknown, other than the fact that it had its start in Australia. But there are two plausible explanations that have been put forward. Unfortunately, the early evidence of use, as is often the case with slang, is sketchy and doesn’t help us determine who Buckley was or why he had had little hope of succeeding.
The earliest use of the phrase that I know of is as the name of a racehorse. From a New South Wales newspaper of 27 March 1872:
IVANHOE RACES
Saturday, 16th March, 1872.
The following are the results of the above races: —
Maiden Plate, £5, l½ mile. — Buckley's Chance, (Buckley) Bryant's Marmion, McKenna's Win if I can, Mutlow's Modestv.
[...]
On the 18th a Match for £5. — Buckley's Chance, (Buckley) Millard's Turpin, won easily by Chance. Match 1½ miles £10. — Millard's Blondin. (Kennedy) McWiggan's Donkey, won easily by Blondin.
It seems that the horse was owned by someone named Buckley, so we can’t tell if the horse was named for the phrase, or if it was just named Chance and the owner’s name appended to it in order to distinguish it from other horses named Chance. This appearance is more than a decade before the slang phrase indisputably appears, so it’s very possible that it’s unrelated to the phrase. There have been several other racehorses with the name Buckley’s Chance over the years; this appears to be the first.
The first clear use of the slang phrase appears in the context of cricket in the 22 September 1887 issue of the Melbourne Punch:
In our sporting columns, in the Fitzroy team appears the name of Bracken. I should have been BUCKLEY. “Olympus” explains that he altered it because he didn’t want the Fitzroy men to have “Buckley’s chance.” Well, that’ll do. He can score his point this time—a thing he wouldn’t have dreamt of letting him do if he had played the “typographical error” business. In the Fitzroy team the asterisks (*) speak for themselves.
The meaning of Buckley’s chance is clear in the above quotation, but much of the context is obscure, unless you’re an expert in late nineteenth-century, Australian cricket. An example that’s clearer to us today is from a few months later. Again, from the Melbourne Punch, but this time 23 February 1888:
The fielding all round was really excellent, the snavelling of every possible show for a catch being still the feature of the game. Hostilities will be restrained on Saturday; but with only 63 runs to the good, I am afraid the “natty” Ormond have got “Buckley’s chance.” Still, cricket’s a funny game, and equally as much as in horse-racing, you never can tell till the numbers go up.
This use, however, is still marked with quotation marks, indicating that the editors still considered it unusual. But within a few years, the phrase is appearing without italics or quotation marks. From the Daily News (Perth) of 21 March 1892:
He might have sneaked ahead so far in the first mile and a half that they would’nt [sic] have had Buckley’s chance of catching him afterwards.
All of the earliest citations of Buckley’s chance are in sports writing, mostly horseracing and cricket. The earliest non-sporting use I have found is also the earliest from New Zealand. From the New Zealand Observer and Free Lance of 10 September 1892:
Buckley and Nunn storefront in Melbourne (now David Jones)
It is presumed that the defendant’s solicitor was nettled at his successive defeats, for he so far forgot himself as to send the cheque in settlement, which by the way, was for £14 3s instead of £15 6s, to the plaintiff himself instead of to his solicitor. Of course, this meant that had the plaintiff not been a man of good principle his solicitor might have had what is called a “Buckley’s chance” of recovering his fees.
As you can see, these early uses provide no clue as to who was the inspiration for the phrase. Two explanations are commonly proffered; both are plausible but neither has any evidence connecting them to the phrase.
The first is that it was inspired by William Buckley (1780–1856). Buckley was a transportee to Australia who escaped prison and lived for 32 years among the Aborigines in the South Victoria outback. His chances of survival were slim, but he managed to nonetheless.
The second is that the phrase is a pun on the name of the Melbourne retailer Buckley and Nunn, founded 1851. The pun being that someone had two chances, Buckley’s and none. The retail operation is still in existence, but now owned by and operating under the name of David Jones Pty Limited.
And it could come from a combination of these two, with William Buckley supplying the chance and the retailer supplying the none.
Sources:
“Diamond Cut Diamond.” The New Zealand Observer and Free Lance, 11.715, 10 September 1892, 15.
Green’s Dictionary of Slang, 2020, s.v. Buckley’s n.
“Ivanhoe Races.” Hay Standard and Advertiser (New South Wales), 27 March 1872, 2.
“The Lady: Chit Chat.” Melbourne Punch. 22 September 1887, 10.
Oxford English Dictionary, second edition, 1989, s.v. Buckley’s, n.
“Sporting Life.” Melbourne Punch, 23 February 1888, 11.
“Sporting News. The Daily News (Perth), 21 March 1892, 2.
Photo credit: Commander Keane, 2012, Wikimedia Commons, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.