Complement of HMS Bounty

The complement of, the Royal Navy ship on which a historic mutiny occurred in the south Pacific on 28 April 1789, comprised 46 men on its departure from England in December 1787 and 44 at the time of the mutiny, including her commander Lieutenant William Bligh. All but two of those aboard were Royal Navy personnel; the exceptions were two civilian botanists engaged to supervise the breadfruit plants Bounty was tasked to take from Tahiti to the West Indies. Of the 44 aboard at the time of the mutiny, 19 were set adrift in the ship's launch, while 25, a mixture of mutineers and detainees, remained on board under Fletcher Christian. Bligh led his loyalists to safety in the open boat, and ultimately back to England. The mutineers divided—most settled on Tahiti, where they were captured by in 1791 and returned to England for trial, while Christian and eight others evaded discovery on Pitcairn Island.
The Admiralty rated Bounty as a cutter, the smallest category of warship—this meant that she was commanded not by a captain but by a lieutenant, with no other commissioned officers aboard, and without the usual detachment of Royal Marines that ships' commanders could use to enforce their authority. Directly beneath Bligh in the chain of command were his warrant officers, appointed by the Navy Board and headed by the sailing master John Fryer. The other warrant officers were the boatswain, the surgeon, the carpenter, and the gunner. Two master's mates and two midshipmen were rated as petty officers; to these were added several honorary midshipmen—so-called "young gentlemen" who aspired to naval careers. They signed on the ship's roster as able seamen, but were quartered with the midshipmen and treated on equal terms with them.
Most on Bounty were chosen by Bligh, or were recommended to him. However, a draft list of the crew before the voyage includes several who did not sail, including two pressed men who are thought to have deserted. Of the eventual crew, William Peckover, the gunner, and Joseph Coleman, the armourer, had been with Bligh when he was Captain James Cook's sailing master on during the explorer's third voyage. Several others had sailed under Bligh more recently, including Christian, who had twice voyaged with Bligh to the West Indies on the merchantman Britannia. The two had formed a master-pupil relationship through which Christian had become a highly skilled navigator; Bligh gave him one of the master's mate's berths on Bounty, and in March 1788, promoted him to the rank of Acting Lieutenant, effectively making Christian second-in-command. Another of the young gentlemen recommended to Bligh was 15-year-old Peter Heywood, a Manxman and a distant relation of Christian's. His recommendation came from Bligh's father-in-law, who was a Heywood family friend.
The two botanists, or "gardeners", were chosen by Sir Joseph Banks, the president of the Royal Society and the expedition's chief promoter. The chief botanist, David Nelson, was another veteran of Cook's third voyage and had learned some of the Tahitians' language. Nelson's assistant, William Brown, was a former midshipman who had seen naval action against the French. Banks also helped to secure the midshipmen's berths for two of his protégés, Thomas Hayward and [|John Hallett]. Overall, Bountys crew was relatively youthful, the majority being under 30. At the time of departure Bligh was 33 years old and Fryer a year older. Among the older crew members were the gunner, William Peckover, who had sailed on all three of Cook's voyages, and Lawrence Lebogue, formerly sailmaker on the Britannia. The youngest aboard were Hallett and Heywood, who were both 15 when they left England.

Complement

Name	Rank or function	Loyalist or mutineer	Activity post-mutiny	Fate
		—	Open boat voyage	Safe return: died 1817
		Loyalist	Open boat voyage	Safe return: died 1817
		Loyalist	Open boat voyage	Safe return; died Royal Navy Hospital March 1833
William Peckover		Loyalist	Open boat voyage	Safe return; died May 1819
		Loyalist	Open boat voyage	Safe return; died 1834 Last known survivor of the Bounty Crew
		—	—	Died in Tahiti before mutiny 1788
		Mutineer	Sailed to Pitcairn	Murdered on Pitcairn, 1793
		Loyalist	Open boat voyage	Died in Batavia, 1789
		Loyalist	Open boat voyage	Died en route home from Batavia, c. 1789
		Loyalist	Open boat voyage	Safe return, died 1794
		Loyalist	Open boat voyage	Safe return, died 1797/98
		Disputed	Settled Tahiti	Captured, convicted, pardoned; rose to Post Captain Royal Navy died 1831
		Disputed	Settled Tahiti	Captured, drowned on Pandora 1791
		Loyalist	Open boat voyage	Safe return; rose to Captain Royal Navy and died Sept 11,1820
		Mutineer	Sailed to Pitcairn	Took no active part in mutiny yet joined it after it was over; died on Pitcairn, 1800
		Loyalist	Open boat voyage	Died in Batavia, 1789
		Loyalist	Open boat voyage	Killed in attack on open boat at Tofua May 2, 1789
		Loyalist	Open boat voyage	Safe return, died at sea 1801
		Disputed	Settled Tahiti	Captured, convicted, pardoned, died at sea 1807
		Mutineer	Sailed to Pitcairn	Murdered on Pitcairn, 1793
		Loyalist	Settled Tahiti	Captured, tried, acquitted; died December 1793
		Loyalist	Settled Tahiti	Captured, tried, acquitted; reported to have gone into Merchant marine service.
		Loyalist	Open boat voyage	Safe return. died Royal Navy service 1795
		Mutineer	Settled Tahiti	Murdered in Tahiti, c. 1790
		Loyalist	Settled Tahiti	Captured, tried, acquitted; last record: discharged from HMS Director to Yarmouth Hospital ship November 1796
		Loyalist	Open boat voyage	Safe return. Became Royal Navy paymaster and died on an unknown date prior to 1825.
		Loyalist	Open boat voyage	Safe return; died unknown date prior to 1825
		Mutineer	Settled Tahiti	Captured, drowned on Pandora 1791
		Loyalist	Open boat voyage	Died in Batavia, 1789
		Loyalist	Open boat voyage	Died in Batavia, 1789
		Mutineer	Settled Tahiti	Captured, convicted, pardoned, died Royal navy service 1797
		Mutineer	Settled Tahiti	Captured, convicted, executed
		Loyalist	Settled Tahiti	Captured, tried, acquitted
		Mutineer	Settled Tahiti	Captured, convicted, executed
		Mutineer	Sailed to Pitcairn	Died on Pitcairn, c. 1798
		Mutineer	Sailed to Pitcairn	Murdered on Pitcairn, 1793
		Mutineer	Settled Tahiti	Captured, convicted, executed
		Mutineer	Sailed to Pitcairn	Murdered on Pitcairn, 1799
		Mutineer	Settled Tahiti	Captured, drowned on Pandora 1791
		Mutineer	Sailed to Pitcairn	Died on Pitcairn, 1829
		Mutineer	Settled Tahiti	Captured, drowned on Pandora 1791
		Mutineer	Settled Tahiti	Murdered in Tahiti, c. 1790
		—	—	Died on Bounty before mutiny 1788
		Mutineer	Sailed to Pitcairn	Murdered on Pitcairn, 1793
		Loyalist	Open boat voyage	Died in Coupang, 1789
		Mutineer	Sailed to Pitcairn	Murdered on Pitcairn, 1793

Michael Byrne

Michael Byrne was born in Kilkenny, Ireland, in 1761. He went to sea as an able seaman at the age of 19. He had served on five naval ships by 1787, when he was signed as an able seaman by Captain Bligh on the Bounty, primarily to play the fiddle. Bligh wrote, "I had great difficulty before I left England to get a man to play the violin and I preferred at last to take one two-thirds blind than come without one," and described him as being "5 feet 6 inches high. Fair complexion and is almost blind. Plays the fiddle. Has the mark of an issue in the back of his neck."
During the mutiny on 28 April 1789, Byrne was notably the sole able seaman who was a loyalist, but he remained on the ship with the mutineers, apparently because his near-blindness added to his confusion. He was put ashore on Tahiti by Fletcher Christian. He gave himself up voluntarily when the Pandora arrived in 1791, and subsequently survived the wreck of the Pandora. He was acquitted of mutiny at court-martial in 1792.
He later served with Bligh's nephew, Francis Bond, on the Prompte; his subsequent fate is unknown.