William Bligh (1754-1817)
The name of William Bligh has become a byword for maritime tyranny, yet for all his unpleasant personality, he was an outstanding seaman who demonstrated great bravery, both in his small boat journey and in battle.
He was born in Plymouth, Devon, on 9 September 1754, the only son of Francis Bligh of Tinten Manor, St. Tudy, Cornwall, a Plymouth customs officer from a long-established Cornish family. William’s mother, Jane Pearce, was a widow in her forty-first year at the time of Bligh’s birth. He was distantly related to other several other contemporary naval officers named Bligh.
In July 1762 Bligh’s name was entered as a captain’s servant on the books of the Monmouth 70, Captain Charles Saxton, until the ship was paid off a year later. He first went to sea in July 1770 as an able seaman aboard the sloop Hunter, Commander John Henshaw, and he was rated a midshipman in the following February. In September 1771 he joined the Crescent 36, Captain John Corner, going out to the Leeward Islands where Captain Corner died in November 1772 to be succeeded by Captain Charles Thompson. The Crescent remained on that station until she was paid off in 1774.
Rejoining Commander Henshaw aboard the sloop Ranger 8 in September 1775, Bligh passed his lieutenant’s examination on 1 May 1776 but was not immediately commissioned. Instead, Captain James Cook appointed him the sailing-master of the Resolution, an extraordinarily responsible post for a 22-year-old non-commissioned officer. Thus, he participated the great explorer’s third voyage of discovery, which departed England that July. When Cook was killed at Hawaii on 14 February 1779 Bligh was commanding a boat on patrol to prevent any of the Hawaiian canoes from leaving Kealakekua Bay. He had ordered the sailors in his boat to fire on a large outrigger canoe fleeing the coming confrontation – some observers (probably inaccurately) claimed that this aggressive action caused the Hawaiians to attack the landing party. After Cook’s death, the Resolution returned to England, arriving in October 1780, by which time the country had been engaged for four years in the American Revolutionary War.
On 4 February 1781 at Douglas on the Isle of Man, Bligh married Elizabeth Betham, the daughter of an esteemed scholar, described as a woman of ‘superior intellect’. They had six daughters, four of whom were living unmarried with Bligh at the time of his death in 1817; two sons died in infancy.
In March 1781 he was appointed the sailing master of the Belle Poule 36, Captain Phillip Patton, in which he was present at the Battle of the Dogger Bank on 5 August of that year. Two months later he was finally commissioned lieutenant, moving to the Berwick 74, Captain John Ferguson – it has been suggested that Commodore Hon. Keith Stewart who flew his broad pennant aboard the Berwick helped secure Bligh’s promotion to lieutenant as a kindness to his father. In January 1782 he was appointed to the Princess Amelia 80, Captain Billy Douglas; three months later he returned to Captain Stewart’s command aboard the Cambridge 74. Lieutenant Bligh served at the Relief of Gibraltar on 18 October, leaving this ship on 13 January 1783 as the American Revolutionary War drew to a close.
Bligh spent the next four years in the merchant service, making two voyages with a family friend, Fletcher Christian. Approaching his 33rd year, he was appointed to the Bounty, a 250-ton vessel purchased by the navy to travel to Tahiti and collect breadfruit, a plant that was intended to be introduced to the West Indies to feed enslaved workers. Leaving England in December 1787 with Christian serving as a masters’ mate, the Bounty arrived at Tahiti in October of the following year. For five long months she remained at this paradise of an island, and as his men became familiar with its delights Bligh’s temper deteriorated under the stress brought on by the responsibility of his undertaking.
Shortly after the Bounty set sail from Tahiti to return to Britain, on 28 April 1789 the unhappy Christian led a mutiny, and Bligh was cast adrift with eighteen of his men. Forty-one days later after a voyage of 3,618 miles in the tiny launch, the outcasts landed safely at Timor in the Dutch East Indies. During the voyage Bligh had displayed supreme seamanship and courage, saving his men in the face of long odds. From Timor Bligh departed for England aboard the packet Vlydte, reaching home on 14 March 1790. He then worked with the Admiralty in the process of finding and punishing the mutineers. Unfortunately, he assumed that all the men who had remained on the Bounty were mutineers, even though there had been insufficient room in the launch for additional loyal men. When the Pandora 24, under the tyrannical Captain Edward Edwards, was sent to the Pacific to bring the mutineers home to face justice, several men who may well have been innocent drowned when the vessel was wrecked.
Back in England, Bligh had been court-martialled (standard procedure for the loss of a ship) but exonerated of any blame for the mutiny. In fact, he was soon promoted: first to the rank of commander (on 14 November 1790), and a month later (on 15 December) to post-captain, assigned to the Medea 28 for purposes of rank only. He wrote a book (‘Narrative of the Mutiny, on board His Majesty’s Ship Bounty’, with the help of Rear-Admiral James Burney, an old comrade from Cook’s third voyage. Some commentators regarded this work as a self-serving justification of Bligh’s own conduct, and it certainly shows his uncompromising attitude to anyone he believed to have rebelled against him.
In August 1791 he sailed once more for the Society Islands, this time aboard the Providence 16, escorted by the Assistant 6, Commander Nathaniel Portlock. Once more the main purpose of the voyage was to transport breadfruit and other plants to the West Indian colonies. After delivering these in early 1793 to St. Vincent and Jamaica he returned home in September. Two Tahitians had volunteered to sail with Bligh; one (Pappo) stayed at Jamaica to tend the transplanted bread fruits and died soon after Bligh left; the other (Mydiddee) died shortly after his arrival in England. Bligh earned a gold medal from the Society of the Arts in recognition of the discoveries he had made on this voyage, but despite the French Revolutionary War having broken out seven months earlier, he spent the next year and a half out of employment.
In April 1795 he was appointed to the recently purchased East Indiaman Warley 24 (renamed Calcutta and rearmed with 50 guns) fitting out at Blackwall. Leaving the Thames for the Downs in August, she joined the North Sea Fleet when it put to sea at the end of the month. By October she was in the Leith Roads with Rear-Admiral Thomas Pringle’s squadron, and that month Bligh displayed his uncompromising attitude to shipboard rebellion by using the threat of overwhelming force to quash a mutiny aboard the Defiance 74, Captain Sir George Home. At the end of the month the Calcutta proceeded to sea in order to escort to the Archangel and Hudson Bay trade north, and she was back in the Downs by December.
He was next appointed to the Director 64 on 7 January 1796, joining her at Chatham three days later. The Director sailed for the North Sea from Portsmouth with Vice-Admiral John Macbride’s squadron in May. Bligh suffered ill-health for much of the rest of the year, as he served on the inclement North Sea station. During the Nore mutiny which erupted on 12 May 1797, he was ordered by the mutineers to confine three of his officers, and then on 23 May he was sent ashore, as were many of the officers of other ships. The Admiralty then sent him to Yarmouth to find out if the ships of Admiral Duncan’s North Sea Fleet would be likely to co-operate in suppressing the Nore Mutiny, but instead they hoisted the red flag of rebellion. However, after the end of the mutiny, he was admirably fair in both identifying the twelve men aboard the Director who had been ringleaders, and ensuring that the rest of the crew were pardoned for their actions.
Captain Bligh fought with distinction at the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801
Commanding the Director at the Battle of Camperdown on 11 October 1797, Bligh demonstrated his fighting abilities by battering the Dutch flagship Vrijheid 74 into surrender, incurring the (surprisingly low) casualties of seven men wounded in the process. Accordingly, the Director was given the honour of escorting the Vrijheid to the Nore, and whilst he was ashore, Bligh attended the Grand Service of Thanksgiving for Naval Victories at St. Paul’s Cathedral in December. Along with most of the other captains in the battle he was awarded the Captain’s Gold Medal, a highly coveted honour. At about this time he requested and received leave from the Admiralty to deal with his chronic rheumatism, which afflicted him for the rest of his life. He continued to command the Director on the North Sea station during 1798, although in June she was detached to serve with Vice-Admiral Sir Charles Thompson’s squadron, which delivered troops to Waterford in Ireland, to oppose the Irish rebels. By August the Director was back on the North Sea station, and on 13 May 1799, in company with the Veteran 64, Captain Archibald Collingwood Dickson, she took five merchant vessels off the Texel. In late 1799, the Director was sent to St Helena to escort ships of the East India Company back to Britain, only to find that they had departed twelve days before he arrived. Bligh remained in command of the Director on the North Sea station until she was paid off in July 1800.
During the next few months, the Admiralty employed Bligh in making detailed surveys of various British ports and coasts, including the Humber, Fowey and Holyhead. His December 1800 chart of Dublin Bay clearly defined the navigational problems of this important port and included suggestions for improving the layout of the approaches to the River Liffey. The Admiralty allowed him to publish his chart as an aid to navigators in the area.
In March 1801 , Bligh replaced Captain George Stephens aboard the ex-Indiaman Glatton 56 in Yarmouth Roads with the North Sea Fleet. Joining Admiral Sir Hyde Parker’s expedition to the Baltic, the Glatton was present at the Battle of Copenhagen on 2 April, where she lost eighteen men killed and thirty-seven wounded. Again, Bligh fought well and he was complimented for his efforts in the engagement by Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson. After the battle he transferred to the Monarch 74 to replace Captain James Mosse who had died in the battle. (The Monarch’s officers were disappointed that First Lieutenant John Yelland, who had fought the ship after Mosse fell, was not rewarded by being promoted to command.) However, this commission proved to be of short duration, for the Monarch was back at Sheerness on 26 April and eleven days later she was paid off. At about this time Bligh was elected a Fellow of the prestigious Royal Society, an honour promoted by his good friend Sir Joseph Banks, the Society’s president.
Three days after leaving the Monarch, Bligh took command of the Irresistible 74 at Chatham. The vessel was still at Sheerness during the last week of May before sailing for Yarmouth in mid-June. In the early part of July, she joined Vice-Admiral Archibald Dickson’s fleet off Goree (an island in southern Holland), and later that month she hoisted Vice-Admiral Christopher Parker’s flag, although when the ship returned to Yarmouth in the middle of August, the admiral (who was the second-in-command on the North Sea station), was in very poor health. The Irresistible was soon back off Goree with Rear-Admiral Sir Thomas Graves squadron, and she then went around to Portsmouth via the Downs on 28 November to join the Channel Fleet. For some months she wintered with the latter force in Torbay before going on a March 1802 cruise with seven other sail of the line. With the French Revolutionary War now ended she was soon back in Torbay, from where she departed in early May for Chatham to be paid off at the end of the month.
Bligh remained unemployed when the Napoleonic War broke out in May 1803, although he did spend time sounding the entrance to the Scheldt River, work that would prove to be of great use to the navy later in the war. In May 1804, he was appointed to the Warrior 74 at Plymouth, although it was not until July that she was ready for sea and able to join the Channel Fleet off Brest. By October she was off Rochefort with Vice-Admiral Cuthbert Collingwood’s squadron, and in the middle of November she arrived at Plymouth to refit, before putting out a fortnight later to rejoin the fleet. On 25 February 1805 Bligh was brought to a court-martial aboard the San Josef 80 at Torbay under the presidency of Vice-Admiral Sir Charles Cotton. One of his officers, Lieutenant John Frazier, had refused duty because of a leg injury and Bligh had responded with an intemperate outburst against the man. Bligh had previously requested a court-martial on Frazier, so there was obviously bad blood between the two men. Bligh was reprimanded for tyranny and advised to moderate his language, but he was allowed to return to the Warrior.
Bligh left the Warrior in May 1805 upon his appointment as the captain-general and governor of New South Wales, a position which had been secured for him by his friend, Sir Joseph Banks. In June he was presented to the King, by September he had received his final instructions, and in February 1806 he departed for the Antipodes aboard the storeship Porpoise 12, Commander Joseph Short. His wife and five of his six daughters remained in England; only Mary, married to a naval lieutenant, made the voyage. On the voyage, he fell out with Commander Short and eventually ordered him to return to England to be court-martialled. Once in his post he characteristically became embroiled in more controversy, especially when he imprisoned Lieutenant William George Carlile Kent for various charges of which that officer was subsequently acquitted in England. Then in 1809 Bligh was forcibly deposed from the governorship following a dispute with army officers over his reforms and their illegal trafficking of rum. He remained confined until March of the following year, when his replacement arrived. The principal army officer involved in the rebellion was later charged over his actions, and cashiered. On 12 May 1810 Bligh departed for England aboard the Hindostan 56, Captain John Pasco, which had brought out his successor (army officer Lieutenant-Colonel Lachlan Macquarie), and he reached Portsmouth with his family at the end of October. No sooner was he back in England than he complained to the Prince Regent over the latter’s remarks about him in a letter leaked to the press.
Bligh became a rear-admiral on 31 July 1810, and a vice-admiral on 4 June 1814, but he never flew his flag at sea. From 1794 he and his family lived at Durham Place, Lambeth, but after he retired, they moved to the Manor House in Farningham, Kent, which was destroyed in World War II by a German bomb.
Aged 63, Vice-Admiral Bligh died of cancer at Bond Street, London on 7 December 1817 and he was buried in the churchyard of St. Mary-at-Lambeth in Lambeth Palace Road alongside his wife, who had died five years before. Perhaps fittingly in light of Bligh’s breadfruit voyages, the church now houses the Garden Museum.
Bligh was stocky, irascible, nervous, and prone to outbursts of violent temper. Even in a service where cursing was common, he was renowned for the violence and savagery of his language towards those under his command. Sometimes he seemed eager to please and sought favourable relationships, but his volatility made his behaviour impossible to predict. He looked after the welfare of his men (at the end of his second breadfruit cruise his crew cheered him over the side), yet he found it difficult to foster amicable relationships with his officers, a fact illustrated by the multiple court-martials in which he was involved. His behaviour during the Bounty voyage was much denigrated by the Heywood and Christian families as part of efforts to rehabilitate their kinsmen, and this slander helped foster his appalling reputation as the ‘Bounty Bastard’. A difficult man to serve, he was nevertheless an outstanding seaman and a brilliant navigator and hydrographer, perhaps second only to Cook. Unlike Cook, he lacked the leadership skills to inspire men to willingly undertake extraordinary feats.