William Frank Buckley (July 11, 1881 – October 5, 1958) was an American lawyer and oil developer. He became influential in Mexican politics during the military dictatorship of Victoriano Huerta but was later expelled when Álvaro Obregón became president. He became wealthy due to his interests in oil exploration and speculation. Buckley was the father of ten children, including William F. Buckley Jr., the author and founder of National Review magazine, and of James L. Buckley, a U.S. Senator from New York (1971–1977). He was the grandfather of author and humorist Christopher Buckley. Early life, parents and siblings Buckley was born the fourth of eight children in Washington-on-the-Brazos, Texas, the son of Mary Ann Langford and John Claude Buckley. His parents had immigrated to Texas from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, in 1874. Both of their families had immigrated to Upper Canada from Ireland from Limerick and Cork, respectively. Langford is a name of English or Norman origin, while Buckley is an anglicized version of Ó Buachalla, a surname quite common in Ireland. In 1882, the family relocated from Washington-on-the-Brazos to San Diego, Duval County, Texas, where John Buckley was a businessman who worked in merchandising, politics and sheep raising. He was elected several times as Duval County Sheriff. After William Frank finished school, he taught Spanish-speaking pupils in a country school near Benavides. He retained a knowledge of and friendship with Spanish-speaking people his entire life. 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 the Romance languages department. He worked as 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. As a devout Catholic, Buckley was part of an effort to purchase property near the university for the Newman Club. After the death of his father in 1904, Buckley commissioned building a large house at Lavaca and 19th streets 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. In 1909 Buckley