Fletcher Christian - Christian in fiction

Seaman and ringleader of the mutiny against Captain William Bligh on the Bounty in 1789, born in Cockermouth, Cumbria, NW England, UK. Educated at Cockermouth Grammar School, he declined to go to university, and joined the navy instead at the age of 18. He served with Bligh on various ships, and was selected by him as midshipman on the Britannia sailing to the West Indies in 1787. A close friendship developed, and Bligh appointed him as first mate on the Bounty. After the mutiny, Christian and eight other mutineers took refuge on Pitcairn I, where his descendents were found in 1808. In all probability, he was killed by the Tahitians.

Fletcher Christian (September 25, 1764 – October 3, 1793) was a Master's Mate on board the Bounty during William Bligh's fateful voyage to Tahiti for breadfruit plants. It was Christian who seized command of the Bounty from Bligh on April 28, 1789.

Christian was born at the Moorland Close farmstead, Cockermouth, in Cumberland, England, into a prosperous family originally from the Isle of Man. When Christian was eighteen, his father died, and the young man went to sea in order to support his family.

Christian twice sailed to Jamaica with Bligh. Following the mutiny, Christian attempted to build a colony on Tubuai, but the mutineers terrorized the natives.

British sailors visiting the island in 1814 found only one mutineer, John Adams, still alive along with nine Tahitian women.

Adams and Maimiti claimed Christian had been murdered during the conflict between the Tahitian men and the mutineers. Along with Christian, four other mutineers and all six of the Tahitian men who had come to the island were killed in the conflict.

Christian was survived by Maimiti and his son, Thursday October Christian (Born 1790), who is the ancestor of almost everybody surnamed Christian on Pitcairn and Norfolk Islands, as well as the many descendants who have moved to Australia and New Zealand. Besides Thursday October, Fletcher Christian also had a younger son named Charles Christian (Born 1792) and a daughter Mary Ann Christian (Born 1793).

Rumours have persisted for more than two hundred years that Christian's murder may have been faked, that he had left the island, and that he made it back to England.

Bligh described Christian as "5 ft.

See Mutiny on the Bounty for a more detailed account of this famous incident.

Christian in fiction

Christian made an appearance as a possessing soul from 'the beyond' (an afterlife of horrifically complete emptiness), in The Night's Dawn Trilogy, a science fiction sequence by Peter F.

The possibility that Christian returned to the Lake District after living on Pitcairn forms the central theme of Val McDermid's 2006 novel The Grave Tattoo.

Christian was portrayed in films by:

Errol Flynn in a 1933 Australian film Clark Gable in 1935 Marlon Brando in 1962 Mel Gibson in 1984

At least some of these films are based on the novel The Mutiny on the Bounty in which Christian is a major character and is generally portrayed positively.

His name also appears in a song by the British pre- and post-punk band the Mekons, "(Sometimes I Feel Like) Fletcher Christian," from their LP So Good It Hurts (1988), as a figure that expresses the plight faced by soldiers fighting in the Falkland Islands. In The Simpsons episode "The Wettest Stories Ever Told", he was portrayed as First Mate Bart Christian.

He has also been parodied in Triple J radio play, Captain Pants, where he appears as Felcher Christian.