William Bligh (1754 - 1817)

Bligh was a naval officer and governor. He was descended from a family settled in St Tudy, Cornwall, since 1680, whose members had been mayors of Bodmin in the sixteenth century. William was entered in H.M.S. Monmouth on July 1762, was paid off the following February, and joined the navy on 27 July 1770. Since there was no vacancy for midshipmen, he was rated ‘able-seaman’, but he messed with the former and officially became one in February 1771. On 17 March 1776 he was appointed master of the Resolution, on James Cook’s third voyage. On the voyage made a number of the charts.