Captain Cecil William Buckley, V.C.

The following is largely taken from the website of Salford City Council.

Born on 7 October 1828 at Patricroft near Eccles in Lancashire, Cecil William Buckley entered the Royal Navy in 1845. When war broke out with Russia in 1854, he was serving as a Lieutenant aboard the frigate HMS Miranda, sent first to the White Sea then, the following year, to the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.

It was here that the first of his two acts of valour took place on 29 May 1855, following the shelling of the town of Genitchi.

‘After mentioning that the stores were in a very favourable position for supplying the Russian Army, and that, therefore, their destruction was of the utmost importance, Lieutenant Cecil W. Buckley, Lieutenant Hugh T Burgoyne, and Mr John Robarts, gunner, volunteered to land alone, and fire the stores, which offer I accepted, knowing the imminent risk there would be in landing a party in presence of such a superior force, and out of gun-shot of the ships. This very dangerous service they most gallantly performed, narrowly escaping the Cossacks, who all but cut them off from their boa.t’ (Despatch from Admiral Lord Lyons, 2 June 1855).

A few days later, during the bombardment of the town of Taganrog, ‘Lieutenant Cecil Buckley, in a four-oared gig, accompanied by Mr Henry Cooper, Boatswain, and manned by volunteers, repeatedly landed and fired the different stores and Government buildings. (Despatch from Admiral Lord Lyons, 6 June 1855).
?Due to poor health, Buckley retired from the Royal Navy with the rank of Captain in 1872. He died, aged 44, on the island of Madeira on & December 1872 and was buried in the British Cemetery in Funchal.

Photographer unidentified.

A pencilled inscription on the album page reads: ‘Capt C.W. Buckley, V.C., R.N. / V.C. for Sea of Azoff, 1855.’