Postscript

On 7 May 1811 the court martial of Major George Johnston began in London. After a month of evidence, including Bligh’s, he was found guilty of mutiny. His sentence was lenient – he was cashiered from the army. This prompted the Prince Regent to declare it was a sentence ‘so inadequate to the enormity of the crime of which the prisoner had been found guilty’. Johnston subsequently returned to New South Wales.

The mystery surrounding the whereabouts of the remaining nine Bounty mutineers, led by Fletcher Christian, was uncovered when an American sealer, Topaz, under the command of Captain Mayhew Folger, stopped at Pitcairn Island in February 1808. Only John Adams (alias Alexander Smith) was still alive. The majority of the mutineers had been murdered by the islanders they took to the island with them, Christian included. He was shot and killed while tending his garden in 1793. He had two sons, Thursday October and Charles, with his Tahitian wife. A daughter, Mary Ann, was born after his death.

In 1817 John Macarthur returned to Sydney from London, having been banned from holding public office – a ban that didn’t stick. He became a popular hero, recognised as the great pioneer of the wool industry for the nation, and went on to become a parliamentarian. He died, insane, at his property, Camden Park, on 11 April 1834.

Sir Joesph Banks remained a champion of British society for his entire life. The greatly respected president of the Royal Society was eventually crippled by gout, but even when confined to a wheelchair he insisted on carrying out his presidential duties in full court dress and wearing the Order of the Bath. He died at his home at Isleworth, to the west of London, on 19 June 1820.

In November 1977, the wreck of the Pandora was located – 186 years after its loss. Its rediscovery by Steve Domm, John Heyer and Ben Cropp was the result of a methodological search based on analysis of historical information compiled by John Heyer. A magnetometer carried by an RAAF maritime reconnaissance aircraft initially indicated the approximate location of the wreck within Pandora Entrance. The exact location – near the spot where a flare had been dropped by the RAAF Neptune – was discovered the next day by Ron Bell, one of the divers on Ben Cropp’s expedition vessel. The Museum of Tropical Queensland has a permanent exhibition, The Pandora Gallery, with many unique artifacts recovered from the wreck. More information can be found at www.mtq.qm.qld.gov.au and the affiliated Queensland Museum website: www.qm.qld.gov.au.

Bligh’s many descendants including the O’Connell, Oakes and Nutting families are today spread across the UK, Australia and New Zealand. The family tree extending from the union of Bligh’s daughter Elizabeth and cousin Richard Bligh includes a great-great-great-great-granddaughter, Anna Maria Bligh, who became the first elected female premier of Queensland in 2009. The Hawkesbury settlers of Ebenezer, Richmond and Windsor never forgot Bligh’s support either. Two hundred years later the descendants of those original settlers including Andrew Johnston and John Turnbull have continued the generational tradition of naming their sons in honour of Bligh. The federal member of parliament Malcolm Bligh Turnbull and his son Alexander Bligh Turnbull, and Penrith auctioneer James Bligh Johnston continue this tradition today.