Bligh’s spirit given a bounty

Press, 5 April 1989, Page 19

Bligh’s spirit given a bounty

By

PETER WATSON,

of the “Observer”

William Bligh, the “Bastard of the Bounty” and victim of the most notorious mutiny in history, was not the ogre he has been painted, according to historians at London’s National Maritime Museum.

Bligh, the historians say, was ahead of his time in his enlightened attitude to hygiene and health, a man who considered many of the naval customs of the eighteenth century to be “inhuman.” Thanks to no fewer than four films (starring, respectively, Erroll Flynn, Charles Laughton, Marlon Brando and Anthony Hopkins) every schoolchild in Britain knows that Bligh was a tyrannical martinet , who pro-

voked Fletcher Christian and a couple of dozen other sailors to take the ship from him near the South Pacific island of Tofua. However, in the course of research for an exhibition at the museum to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the mutiny, historians led by Dr Rina Prentice, curator of antiquities, had consulted documents in the Public Records Office in Britain and Bligh’s own diary in Australia, which confirm that Bligh was a very different character from the myth that has grown up. • Bligh created a third watch,

thus ensuring that his men had longer rest periods than was normal. • Bligh insisted on hot breakfast for his men every day they were at sea, a very unusual practice at the time. • He took a blind fiddler along on the voyage and insisted on his men having dancing lessons, so that, despite the cramped conditions, they got plenty of exercise. • He ensured that the standardissue launch was replaced by a bigger one, stronger and more stable. • He insisted the decks

were properly aired and fumigated by fires lit below. • On previous occasions, when the crew had performed well during bad weather, he had called them together and thanked them.

Why, then, was there a mutiny and why has Bligh gone down as such an ogre? Dr Prentice believes two factors may account for this. “Fletcher Christian and Peter Hayward were very well connected back in Britain. As a result of their influence, many anti-Bligh pamphlets were circulated. “The second factor is accident The mutiny appears to have been spontaneous and fairly chaotic. The evening before it happened, most of the crew who weren’t on duty passed the time watching a volcano on the horizon — hardly the behaviour of people conspiring to overthrow a powerful despot”