If you wonder, what is the most famous mutiny, you might first think about the mutiny on H.M.S. Bounty. The bloodless mutiny took place 235 years ago, on 28 April 1789. There are books about it, films about it and there are loads of stuff on internet about it, so I am not going to write too much about the mutiny and events after it. But two things made me wanting to scratch it anyway; photos of William Bligh’s grave and the book in my bookshelf.
The mutiny on the Bounty took place on 28 April 1889 during her journey to Otaheite to acquire breadfruit plants from there. Otaheite is nowadays known as Tahiti. But in this story I will use the old name, simply, because my only source is a book called Mutiny in the “Bounty” and Story of the Pitcairn Islanders by Alfred McFarland. The book is published in 1884 by Gibbs, Shallard, & Co.
Alfred McFarland (1824-1901) was a judge in Australia. In Google Books it’s said like this about the book: “McFarland has drawn upon the many versions of events and presents them here with great clarity. He takes the view that both sides, whilst guilty of some heinous deeds, are deserving of credit in part, for the extreme conditions endured and for many their very survival.” (Source) In the Royal Collection Trust website there is also a description about the book. Please, check here. The whole book can be read on internet. You find it here.
I have noticed that certain details vary from source to source, but as I am not an expert of the subject and cannot dig deeper, I want to say that my story is based on this book, but I will give some links to some pages. If you want to know more about the mutiny, there are loads of material on internet and several other books are written about the events.
Why I am then writing this article, if I am not familiar with it? I gave the reasons in the intro. One was simply this book that was sitting unread on my bookshelf. I read the first half of the book, the mutiny part. But I didn’t read the latter half as the theme of my article was just the mutiny, not the later history of Pitcairn (that is still inhabited by the descendants of the mutineers). I have bought my copy years ago in well-known antiquarian bookshop in Helsinki. It has ex libris. The book has belonged to late journalist and movie director Jarkko Aarniala. He has made documentary films of sailing ships, so no wonder that this particular book was found on his bookshelf.
For me, it’s not just a book, but also a beautiful item, which place is on a drawer in my living room among other beautiful books. The other reason, why I wanted to write this story was my photos about the grave of William Bligh. Finally I have a good reason to publish a photo or two of the grave. I have to say that when I photographed it, I had no idea, who William Bligh was.
In 1787 a stout vessel called the Bounty, of 215 tons, was provided by the Admiralty to collect bread-fruit from the South Seas. On 16 August of that year she was placed under the command of Lieutenant William Bligh, who had for example served as Sailing Master in the Resolution, under Captain Cook’s last voyage in 1776–79. The crew consisted all in all of 46 persons. The journey started from Spithead on 23 December 1787. (p. 1–2, please note that if nothing more than page numbers are mentioned, the source is McFarland’s book.)
This is what Mr. Bligh himself wrote about the events on 28 April 1789:
Tuesday, 28th April, ’89 : Just before sun-rising, while I was yet asleep, Mr. Christian (who was Acting Lieutenant, and had the morning watch – or from 4 to 8), with the master-at-arms, gunner’s mate, and Thomas Birkett, seaman, came into my cabin ; and, securing me, tied my hands with a cord behind my back ; threatening me with instant death, if I spoke or made the least noise. I, however, called out as loud as I could, in hopes of assistance ; but they had already secured the officers who were not of their party, by placing sentinels at their doors. There were three men at my cabin door, besides the four within ; Christian had only a cutlass in his hand ; the others had muskets and bayonets. I was hauled out of bed, and forced on deck in my shirt – suffering great pain from the tightness with which they had tied my hands. I demanded the reason of such violence ; but received no other answer than abuse, for not holding my tongue. Mr. Fryer (the Master), the gunner, the Acting Surgeon, Mr. Elphinstone (the second Master’s Mate), and one of the botanists, were kept confined below ; and the fore-holds were guarded by sentinels. The boatswain, carpenter, and clerk, were allowed to come upon deck, where they saw me standing abaft the mizzen-mast, with my hands tied behind my back, under a guard, with Christian at their head ; and the boatswain was ordered to hoist the launch out, with a threat, if he did not do so instantly, to take care of himself. (pp. 6–7)
Bligh’s account continued to tell how the things were progressing. But that’s not important here, but what’s important is the list of items that those who went into the launch (life boat) with Bligh could take with them: twine, canvas, lines, sails, cordage, 28 gallon-cask of water, bread, pork, rum and wine, quadrant, compass, clothes and some other things. McFarland writes that Bligh forgot to mention in his account that Fletcher Christian placed in Bligh’s hands a book of nautical tables and his own sextant. (p. 9)
The launch was 23 feet in length, 6 feet 9 inches in breadth and 2 feet 9 inches in depth (p. 28). The mutineers wanted to get rid of some of the crew, but some were following Bligh voluntarily. They were not left in an open sea, but relatively close some inhabited islands. In fact, they were expelled from the Bounty near Tofoa (Tofua, that belongs to Tonga). The quarter-master was killed in Tofoa and the party left the island on 2 May.
Below is a table from the book (p. 11) of people, who were with Bligh on the launch and those who stayed with Christian on the Bounty.
What caused the mutiny according to Bligh? His explanation was the handsome women of Otaheite. McFarland writes that
It is represented by Mr. Bligh, that a daring and unprecedented act of Mutiny on the high seas, by British officer, or previous good repute, and by a number of seamen (whom he writes of, in another place as “the best men in the ship”), is to be attributed, solely, to a desire on their part to lead a life of indolence and sensuality in a South Sea Island, and not to any cause of complaint against himself. (p. 12)
It’s mentioned that Bligh was behaving “very ill to Christian” (p. 14) and other causes mentioned were his perverse temper and tyrannical conduct and his language “particularly to his officers, is stated to have been habitually and inexcusably coarse”. (p. 15) These comments appear in several places in the book uttered by different people. It’s also noted that the mutiny was not a result of a conspiracy but planned quickly on that morning thanks to simply got enough of Bligh’s abusive and insulting language (p. 22).
I am not going to explain the route of the expelled party, but their aim was to reach Timor (West Timor), where there was a Dutch settlement. They finally reached the capital of the settlement (Coupand, current Kupang) on 15 June. Gardener Nelson died at Coupang.
Bligh bought a new vessel and the journey continued with a schooner Resource and sailed to Batavia (current the area, where Jakarta is located) that was reached on the first day of October. Here they lost more men, two seamen (Lenkletter and Hall) and Master’s Mate Elphinstone.
From Batavia, Mr. Bligh and his men sailed to England in two detachments. Butcher Lamb died on the way home and there has not been mentioned about the surgeon Leonard has not been heard either. All in all, 12 men of 19 made it back to England in the spring 1790.
What happened to the mutineers
After getting rid of Mr. Bligh and his followers, Christian took responsibility of the affairs. The Bounty sailed to a small island called Toubouai (Tubuai). But the reception was not friendly and they sailed back to Otaheite. They collected all kinds of things, such as livestock (including a bull) and turned back to Toubouai, where Christian had planned to found a settlement. Some Otaheitan people followed the mutineers on board. But soon all kinds of indifferences appeared between the inhabitants and mutineers as well as among the mutineers own group. It didn’t help that the livestock “found their way to the yam and taro plantations, of which the Toubouaians were careful cultivators” (p. 47). Not everyone liked the idea of settling on this island. In fact, as McFarland writes, Stewart, Heywood and Morrison had even been thinking about escaping because they were “conscious of their innocence of any real share in the outbreak, and anxious to avail themselves of any possible chance of vindication”.
The mutineers finally voted about leaving for Otaheite, but that didn’t happen peacefully, and many islanders were killed during the actions that took place after the mutineers went to collect their livestock to take the animals with them. But obviously there were much deeper and more serious reasons behind the violence, women. This link takes you to that part of the story in Wikipedia article about the island. In the article the name Birkett is written as “Burkett”; both versions appear in several sources.
On 22 September the Bounty anchored in Matavai Bay. Here more than half of the mutineers decided to go on shore. Below is the list of people who decided to stay on Otaheite and who remained on the Bounty (table from p. 49):
On the other hand, three Otaheitan men, with their wives joined Christian’s group with a baby girl, who in the future married Christian’s son, Thursday October Christian.
Before the Bounty departed, Christian had a conversation with Stewart and Haywood and advised them to give them up, because he couldn’t see any harm come to them as they took no part in the mutiny (p. 51). Some people prepared to wait for a ship from England that would come to search for Bounty, some thought that it was possible to build a vessel that could take them to Batavia and from there back home. The schooner they build was christened Resolution after Captain Cook’s ship, but they had to forget the plan to sail to Batavia. “…it was found that the craft could only be used for pleasure excursions round the island”. On 23 March 1791 a frigate with 24 guns and 160 men called H.M.S. Pandora was “standing in, and rounding the point of Matavai Bay [—] commanded by Captain Edward Edwards”. (pp. 51–54)
Stewart, Heywood and Colman gave themselves up to Pandora’s officers, and soon two others followed their example. “[T]hey were all put in irons, manacled, and taken below” as soon they appeared, (p. 56) This same treatment was faced by all the mutineers. Prisoners spent the time in a small space in extremely heat, and the leg-irons and handcuffs were tight. “Sickness soon appeared among the prisoners, and their limbs became galled from the tightness of their irons”, writes McFarland (p. 58) The conditions were inhuman.
Heywood had written in a letter to his mother (quotation from a footnote on p. 59):
There was a sort of prison built on the after part of the quarter-deck, into which the 14 of us were put in close confinement, with both legs and both hands in irons ; and we were treated with great rigor ; not being allowed ever to get out of this den, and being obliged to eat, drink, sleep, and obey the calls of nature, there.
Pandora sailed from Otaheite (followed by Resolution with a Midshipman and four seamen) on 19 May 1791. They were searching for Christian and his followers, in vain. Also, Resolution and the men on her separated from Pandora for good. (p. 60 )If the terrible conditions in the ship were not enough for prisoners, worse things were coming: Pandora wrecked on 28 August in the Torres Strait.
All in all, thirty-nine people drowned according McFarland’s book, but in some other sources say the number was thirty-five, including four prisoners; Mr. Stewart, John Sumner, Richard Skinner and Henry Hildebrandt, the two last mentioned “with their hands [and one of them having his feet] still in manacles” (p.65). At the time of the shipwreck, eleven of the mutineers
were kept handcuffed, and in irons, by his express orders [by Captain Edwards], whilst the ship was breaking up, and would therefore, most probably, have been all drowned, except for the courage and humanity of the armorer’s and boatswain’s mates, who, at the risk of their own lives, freed 10 out of the 11 of their irons, and eight of their manacles… (p. 64)
Birkett was also manacled, but was somehow saved.
It has been said that Captain Edwards was even worse than Bligh. For example during the shipwreck, Edwards did nothing to help the prisoners, when he passed them to make his own escape. (p. 65)
I am not going into details, but finally their journey towards England continued. Pandora’s crew and prisoners reached the Cape of Good Hope in January 1792 and there they were transferred to H.M.S. Gorgon. They reached England on 19 June. The prisoners were moved to H.M.S. Hector to wait for the trial. They were treated well. They were placed upon a trial on 12 September 1792. The surviving mutineers that were brought from Otaheite were: Heywood, Morrison, Norman, Colman, Ellison, McIntosh, Birkett, Millward, Muspratt and Byrne.
I am not going to write about the trial, as you can read about it for example here. Three of the mutineers were hanged: Ellison (who was only 17 years old at the time of the mutiny), Millward and Birkett were executed by hanging on board H.M.S. Brunswick in Portsmouth harbour. (p. 87)
To Pitcairn Islands
But what happened to Fletcher Christian and the eight man, who stayed on the Bounty? They left Matavai Bay on 23 September 1789. With them on board there were three persons from Toubouai, three men from Otaheite, 13 women and one child as mentioned earlier. They sailed to Pitcairn Islands, and here “lay the shelter the mutineers had longed for, where they might live in peace – ‘no man making them afraid’ – and die in peace, when their time came.” The Bounty was stripped totally, everything useful was removed and the hull burnt.
In 1808 an American trading vessel, the Tapaz needed to find a place for getting fresh water. One of her crew members, an Englishman, went to shore and met a man, who introduced himself as “Alexander Smith”. (Later Smith started to use a name John Adams that seems to be in fact his real name.) He told that he was the only survivor of the nine Englishman, who had landed here in the late autumn 1789. The mutineers arrived to the island with the hope of a peaceful life, but that didn’t happen. Smith told about the feuds that had broken out among the men “terminating in the violent end of 13 out of the 15 men”. Only Mr. Young had died naturally. When Young died in 1800, Adams became the only surviving man on the island. (pp. 93–94, 112)
Now, the population of the island was “35 persons, of whom he had been for a long while the guardian and instructor” (p. 93). The population consisted of Otaheitan women, and the descendants of the mutineers, and Adams. Adams died in 1829. The last person, an Otaheitan woman, who arrived to Pitcairn on the Bounty, died in 1850. The island is still inhabited. The capital of Pitcairn is called Adamstown after John Adams.
If you want to know more about the current situation of Pitcairn, you can also watch several videos on YouTube.
William Bligh’s tomb
William Bligh arrived in England in March 1790. His naval career continued after these adventurous events and he died on cancer in London on 7 December 1817. He was buried at St. Mary’s in Lambeth on a family plot, where he is resting next to his wife. Nowadays the Garden Museum is located on this site. (I will come back to both the garden and to the museum in the future; by the “garden” I mean the former churchyard and by the “museum”, the Garden Museum itself. That is familiar place to me and I have even written about it for a Finnish garden magazine.)
The Wikipedia article “knows” that in Bligh’s tomb there is used “Coade stone (Lithodipyra), a compound of clay and other materials that was moulded in imitation of carved stonework and fired in a kiln”. The name comes from Eleanor Coade, whose factory in Lambeth produced this stonework. In fact, Wikipedia article didn’t know everything, as it has obviously stated earlier that the finial is a breadfruit, but in fact it is an eternal flame (according to this source; it has been corrected on Wikipedia later).
Anyway, even though I will come back later with a special photo story to this former churchyard, below is a photo of the place showing it in its former shape, before the renovation. I took this photo in July 2001:
And here is a text on it (photo taken in 2017):
Text, unless otherwise stated and the photos © Katriina Etholén
For further reading:
Tales From The Brazier's Grotto 
Great article! thanks! Didn’t realise the mutineers all ended up killing each other, though seems they have descendents.
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Thank you, Glyn. Yes, it seems that there were lots of disagreements between the islanders and the mutineers, but between the mutineers as well. Some deaths are not clear, but in Pitcairn there might have been at least one, maybe two suicides as well. Nobody seems to know, how Christian died!
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I was actually near Bligh’s grave this year on a visit to the Garden Museum but didn’t realise as I was distracted by the spectacular Tradescant tomb 😀 https://flickeringlamps.com/2015/09/04/the-spectacular-tradescant-tomb-a-world-of-wonders-in-one-closet-shut/
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I can understand that. I visited the museum first time more than two decades ago to write an article about the museum and I was also interested in the Tradescant tomb, but I also photographed Bligh’s resting place, even though I didn’t know who he was. Thanks for the link. I have to remember to give a link to that article when I am doing my little story about the Garden Museum and maybe a separate story about the “garden” and publish my photos. I prefer the place before the 2017 re-opening. I think that the garden with a café looks a bit too “sterile” comparing the old garden.
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