On this day in 1754, William Bligh was born. Following the famous mutiny on HMS Bounty, his name would become synonymous with harsh discipline bordering on tyranny. The mutiny on the Bounty would be only one of four mutinies that Bligh would live through before he retired as Vice Admiral. He was captain of ships that mutinied in the fleet-wide mutinies at both Spithead and the Noire in 1797. As the Governor of New South Wales, now Australia, he was arrested in the mutiny referred to as the “Rum Rebellion” in 1808. In courts marshall which followed the mutinies, Bligh was always exonerated.
If the Bounty had merely sunk instead of mutinied, Bligh would likely be remembered as one of the greatest navigators of the age. Following the mutiny, he sailed an overloaded 23′ open boat, with 18 loyal crew members, on a 47-day voyage across 3,618 nautical miles of the Pacific Ocean to Timor without charts or compass, equipped only with a quadrant and a pocket watch. A recent biography by maritime historian Rob Mundle, Bligh, Master Mariner, makes the case that there is a “lot more about Captain Bligh than the Bounty, mutiny and convicts.”
After being exonerated for the mutiny on the Bounty, Bligh successfully completed a second breadfruit voyage as master and commander of HMS Providence transporting breadfruit from Tahiti to the West Indies. He also collected samples of the ackee fruit of Jamaica, which was given the scientific name, Blighia sapida, in his honor.
At the Battle of Camperdown in 1797, when in command of HMS Director, Bligh engaged three Dutch men of war, the Haarlem, the Alkmaar and the Vrijheid, inflicting heavy casualties, while only 7 seamen were wounded on his ship. In his career, he would command over a dozen Royal Navy ships.
Hundreds of books have been written about Captain Bligh and the famous mutiny, including two volumes written by Bligh himself, which were best sellers in his time.
A replica of original HMS Bounty, built in 1960 for the MGM movie version of Mutiny on the Bounty, which starred Marlon Brando, is based in Setauket, New York but is actively sailing. She is currently in Bergen, Norway.