William Frank Buckley, Sr.
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- For other persons of like name, see: William F. Buckley (disambiguation).
William Frank Buckley, Sr. (born: 11 July 1881 Washington on the Brazos, Texas & died 5 October 1957 in New York City) was a Texan lawyer who became an influential influence on Mexican politics during the term of office of Victoriano Huerta and who was expelled from Mexico during the Presidency of Álvaro Obregón. Buckley is best known as the father of the publisher of National Review magazine, William Frank Buckley, Jr. as well as the father of former U.S. Senator James L. Buckley who was the Senator of New York State, representing the Conservative Party of New York between 1971 1977 and is the grandfather of Christopher Buckley, conservative author and humorist.
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[edit] Early Life, parents and siblings
Buckley was born to John Buckley and Mary Anne Buckley (née Langford) of Irish ancestry and was the fourth of eight children. In 1882, the family relocated to San Diego, Duval County, Texas where John Buckley was a businessman who worked in merchandising, politics and sheep raising. He was also elected several times as Duval County Sheriff. After William Frank finished school, he taught Spanish-speaking pupils in a country school near Benavides and retained a knowledge and friendship with Spanish speaking people his entire life.
[edit] Education
Buckley attended the University of Texas at Austin, where he received advanced credit for his Spanish language skills and acted as an assistant to a professor in Romance languages department, and was also a Spanish translator, along with his sister, Priscilla Buckley for the Texas General Land Office. He helped to found the University of Texas' Chapter of the fraternity Delta Tau Delta , Gamma Iota As a devout Catholic, he was part of an effort to purchase property near the University for the Newman Club. After the death of his father in 1904, Buckley commisioned a large house at Lavaca and Nineteenth street in Austin (now the site of the Cambridge Tower) , where his mother lived until her death in 1930. He obtained a Bachelor of Science degree in 1904 from the University of Texas and his Bachelor of Laws from the University of Texas Law School. In 1905 he was elected editor of the University of Texas Yearbook, The Cactus, and he received his license to practice law and was elected a member of the Texas Bar Association in 1909.
[edit] Activities in Mexico
In 1908, Buckley moved to Mexico and established himself as a lawyer, founding the firm of Buckley & Buckley with his brother Claude Buckley to represent major American and European oil companies operating in Mexico. In 1912, he opened an office with his other brother, Edmund Buckley, in Tampico and in 1913 founded and became President of the Pantepec Oil Company based in Tampico. In 1914, he was named by President Huerta as counsel for the ABC Powers and gave up his legal practice to speculate in real estate and leasing of oil lands. He refused an offer by the President of the United States, Woodrow Wilson, to serve as acting civil governor of the Mexican State of Veracruz, following the Occupation of Veracruz. In 1919 he testified before the U.S. Senate Joint Subcommittee on Foreign Relations as an expert on conditions in Mexico. He then founded the American Association of Mexico, which was a lobby group working to remove Article 18 from the Mexican Constitution of 1917 amended to remove restrictions on American land and oil ownership. In 1921, he was expelled from Mexico because of AAM's activity and he gave his report to the U.S. Secretary of State about his expulsion in 1922. He then donated his papers to the University of Texas in 1923. In 1924, he was invited to return by President Plutarco Elías Calles, but transfered his Pantepec Oil Company to Venezuela.
[edit] Oil Speculator
After he transfered his company to Venezuela, he fully committed himself to oil exploration, where he was one of the first to use the "farm-out" system, where Buckley would make agreements with some of the largest oil companies who would share the profits on the oil found on the land in return for development costs. His first major deal was made with Standard Oil during the 1930s, when a large oilfield was discovered on Pantepec's Venezuelan lands. During his career, Buckley was primarily interested in unexplored territory and in 1946 he began developing his holdings into separate companies. Operations became international with holdings in Canada, Florida, Ecuador, Australia the Philippines, Israel and Guatemala.
[edit] Personal life and family
In 1917 he married Aloise Steiner of New Orleans. He supervised his children's educations in French, Spanish and English. He had ten children, and his family lived in Paris, London and the United States. During the 1920s, he purchased Great Elm in Sharon, Connecticut and Kamchatka in Camden, South Carolina.
[edit] Stroke and Death
While traveling between Paris and New York City in September 1958, Buckley suffered a stroke while aboard the S.S. United States, where he was given Last Rites. He died in Lenox Hill Hospital in New York on 5 October 1958, and is buried in the Quaker Cemetery in Camden, South Carolina.
