Though claiming to have never had a lesson, Buckley was a
Fellow of the
Royal College of Organists as well as a church organist at St John's Church,
Harborne (1874) and
Smethwick in 1878. He was also organist at Holy Trinity,
Bordesley and
St Mary's Church, Whittall Street, Birmingham. In 1887 he began writing for the Sunday Mercury, a series of short articles titled ‘’Pulpit and Pew’’ about popular contemporary preachers and it ran for 27 years. ==Chess==