Vice-Admiral William Bligh FRS RN (9 September 1754 – 7 December 1817) was an officer of the British Royal Navy and a colonial administrator. A notorious mutiny occurred during his command of HMS Bounty in 1789; Bligh and his loyal men made a remarkable voyage to Timor, after being set adrift by the mutineers in the Bounty's launch. Fifteen years after the Bounty mutiny, he was appointed Governor of New South Wales in Australia, with orders to clean up the corrupt rum trade of the New South Wales Corps, resulting in the so-called Rum Rebellion.

Early life

Bligh was born in St Tudy near Bodmin in Cornwall to Cornish parents, Francis and Jane Bligh (née Balsam). He was signed up for the Royal Navy in 1761, at the age of seven, in the same town. It was common practice to sign on a "young gentleman" simply in order to rack up the required years of service for quick promotion. In 1770, at the age of 16, he joined HMS Hunter as an able seaman, the term being used only because there was no vacancy for a midshipman. He became a midshipman early in the following year of 1771. In September 1771, Bligh was transferred to the Crescent and remained on that ship for three years.

In 1776, Bligh was selected by Captain James Cook for the position of sailing master on the Resolution and accompanied Captain Cook in July 1776 on Cook's third and fatal voyage to the Pacific. He reached England again at the end of 1780 and was able to give further details of Cook's last voyage.

Bligh married Elizabeth Betham, the daughter of a Customs Collector (stationed in Douglas, Isle of Man), on 4 February 1781, at the age of 26. The wedding took place at nearby Onchan.Trevor Kneale, The Isle of Man, Pevensey Island Guides, Brunel House, Newton Abbot, Devon, 2007, ISBN 1-898630-25-9
A few days later, he was appointed to serve on HMS Belle Poule as its master. Soon after this, in August 1781, he fought in the Battle of Dogger Bank under Admiral Parker. For the next 18 months, he was a lieutenant on various ships. He also fought with Lord Howe at Gibraltar in 1782.

Between 1783 and 1787, Bligh was a captain in the merchant service. In 1787 Bligh was selected as commander of the Bounty. Bligh would eventually rise to the rank of Vice Admiral in the Royal Navy.

Naval career

William Bligh's naval career consisted of a variety of appointments and assignments. He first rose to historical prominence as Master of HMS Resolution, under the command of Captain Cook. Bligh received praise from Cook during what would end up to be Cook's final voyage. A summary is as follows:

The voyage of the Bounty

In 1787, Bligh took command of the Bounty. In order to win a premium offered by the Royal Society of Arts, he first sailed to Tahiti to obtain breadfruit trees, then set course for the Caribbean, where breadfruit was wanted for experiments to see whether it would be a successful food crop for slaves there. The Bounty never reached the Caribbean, as mutiny broke out on board shortly after leaving Tahiti.

The voyage to Tahiti was difficult. After trying unsuccessfully for a month to round Cape Horn, the Bounty was finally defeated by the notoriously stormy weather and forced to take the long way around the Cape of Good Hope. That delay resulted in a further delay in Tahiti, as they had to wait five months for the breadfruit plants to mature enough to be transported. The Bounty departed Tahiti in April 1789.

Since it was rated only as a cutter, the Bounty had no officers other than Bligh himself (who was then only a lieutenant), a very small crew, and no Marines to provide protection from hostile inhabitants during stops or to enforce security on board ship. To allow longer uninterrupted sleep, Bligh divided his crew into three watches instead of two, and placed his protégé Fletcher Christian—rated as a Master's Mate—in charge of one of the watches. The mutiny, which broke out during the return voyage on 28 April 1789, was led by Christian and supported by eighteen of the crew, who had seized firearms during Christian's night watch and then surprised and bound Bligh in his cabin.
Despite being in the majority, none of the loyalists seemed to have put up any significant struggle once they saw Bligh bound, and the ship was taken without bloodshed. The mutineers provided Bligh and the eighteen of his crew who remained loyal with a 23 foot (7m) launch (so heavily loaded that the gunwales were only a few inches above the water), with four cutlasses and food and water for a few days to reach the most accessible ports, a sextant and a pocket watch, but no charts or compass. The launch could not hold all the loyal crew members, and four were detained on the Bounty by the mutineers for their useful skills; these were later released at Tahiti.

Tahiti was upwind from Bligh's initial position, and was the obvious destination of the mutineers. Many of the loyalists claimed to have heard the mutineers cry "Huzzah for Otaheite!" as the Bounty pulled away. Timor was the nearest European outpost. Bligh and his crew did make for Tofua first, to obtain supplies. There they were attacked by hostile natives and a crewman was killed. After fleeing Tofua, Bligh didn't dare stop at the next islands (the Fiji islands), as he had no weapons for defense and expected further hostile receptions.

Bligh had confidence in his navigational skills, which he had perfected under the instruction of Captain Cook. His first responsibility was to survive and get word of the mutiny as soon as possible to British vessels that could pursue the mutineers. Thus, he undertook the seemingly impossible 3,618 nautical mile (6,701 km) voyage to Timor. In this remarkable act of seamanship, Bligh succeeded in reaching Timor after a 47-day voyage, with the only casualty being the crewman killed on Tofua. Several of the men who survived this ordeal with him soon died of sickness, possibly malaria, in the pestilential Dutch East Indies port of Batavia, as they waited for transport to Britain.
To this day, the reasons for the mutiny are a subject of considerable debate. Some believe that Bligh was a cruel tyrant whose abuse of the crew led members of the crew to feel that they had no choice but to take the ship from Bligh. Others believe that the crew, inexperienced and unused to the rigours of the sea and, after having been exposed to freedom and sexual license on the island of Tahiti, refused to return to the "Jack Tars" existence of a seaman. They were "led" by a weak Fletcher Christian and were only too happy to be free from Bligh's acid tongue. They believe that the crew took the ship from Bligh so that they could return to a life of comfort and pleasure on Tahiti. Bligh returned to London arriving in March 1790.

The Bountys log shows that Bligh resorted to punishments relatively sparingly. He scolded when other captains would have whipped and whipped when other captains would have hanged. He was an educated man, deeply interested in science, convinced that good diet and sanitation were necessary for the welfare of his crew. He took a great interest in his crew's exercise, was very careful about the quality of their food, and insisted upon the Bounty being kept very clean. He tried (unsuccessfully) to check the spread of venereal disease among them. . Prior to the mutiny only 2 members of the Ships crew had died, one seaman from infection and the ship's doctor from indolence. The flaw in this otherwise enlightened naval officer was, as J.C. Beaglehole wrote: "[Bligh made] dogmatic judgements which he felt himself entitled to make; he saw fools about him too easily... thin-skinned vanity was his curse through life... [Bligh] never learnt that you do not make friends of men by insulting them."

Popular fiction often confuses Bligh with Edward Edwards of HMS Pandora, who was sent on the Royal Navy's expedition to the South Pacific to find the mutineers and bring them to trial. Edwards was allegedly every bit the cruel man that Bligh was accused of being; the 14 men that he captured were confined in a cramped 18' x 11' x 5' 8" wooden cell on the Pandora's quarterdeck. When the Pandora ran aground on the Great Barrier Reef, 4 of the prisoners and 31 of the crew were killed. The prisoners would have all perished, had not William Moulter, a bosun's mate, unlocked their cage before jumping off the sinking vessel.

In October 1790, Bligh was honourably acquitted at the court-martial inquiring the loss of the Bounty. Shortly thereafter, A Narrative of the Mutiny on board His Majesty's Ship "Bounty" was published. Of the 10 surviving prisoners, eventually brought home in spite of the Pandoras loss, four were acquitted, due to Bligh's testimony that they were non-mutineers that Bligh was obliged to leave on the Bounty due to lack of space in the launch. Two others were convicted because, while not participating in the mutiny, they were passive and did not resist. They subsequently received royal pardons. One was convicted but excused on a technicality. The remaining three were convicted and hanged.
Comparative travels of the Bounty and the small boat after mutiny:
Travel up to the mutiny:


Travel of the mutineers:

Travel of Bligh's boat: