page_title: HMS Bounty
section_title: Crew list
hierarchical_section_title: HMS Bounty / Mission details / Crew list
caption_attribution_description: en:John Adams (mutineer) of the en:HMS Bounty
context_page_description: HMS Bounty, also known as HM Armed Vessel Bounty, was a small merchant vessel that the Royal Navy purchased for a botanical mission. The ship was sent to the Pacific Ocean under the command of William Bligh to acquire breadfruit plants and transport them to the West Indies. That mission was never completed owing to a mutiny led by acting lieutenant Fletcher Christian. This incident is now popularly known as the mutiny on the Bounty. The mutineers later burned Bounty while she was moored at Pitcairn Island. An American adventurer rediscovered the remains of the Bounty in 1957; various parts of it have been salvaged since then.
context_section_description: In the 18th century Royal Navy, rank and position on board ship were defined by a mix of two hierarchies—an official hierarchy of ranks (commissioned officers, warrant officers, petty officers, and seamen) and a conventionally recognized social division between gentlemen and non-gentlemen.  Royal Navy uniforms were often used to denote rank and position on board ships; however, uniforms were not worn daily on board while Bounty was underway due to the lengthy and isolated voyage.
  At the top of the official rank hierarchy were the commissioned officers; on a larger warship, the commissioned officers included the captain, several lieutenants to command watches, and the officers commanding the Royal Marines on board the ship. The Bounty, however, carried no marines and no commissioned officers other than Lieutenant Bligh himself, who served as master and commander of the ship. He was the ship's captain, and he occupied a private cabin.
  Next below the commissioned officers came the warrant officers, such as the sailing master, surgeon, boatswain, purser, and gunner, who were as likely to be considered skilled tradesmen as gentlemen. As the senior warrant officer, the sailing master and his mates were entitled to berth with the lieutenants in the wardroom (though, in this case, there were no lieutenants there); other warrant officers berthed in the gunroom. Like commissioned officers, warrant officers had the right of access to the quarterdeck and were immune from punishment by flogging. They held their warrants directly from the navy, and the captain could not alter their rank. Roman Catholics were allowed to serve as warrant officers, but not as commissioned officers.
  Below the warrant officers came the petty officers. The petty officers included two separate groups: young gentlemen training to be future commissioned officers, often serving as midshipmen or master's mates, and tradesmen working as skilled assistants to the warrant officers. The young gentlemen technically were without ratings, holding a rank below warrant officers at the mercy of the captain but, as aspiring future commissioned officers, they were considered socially superior and were often given a watch (with authority over some warrant officers) or a minor command.
  Finally, at the bottom of the hierarchical tree were the seamen, divided into able seamen and ordinary seamen. Aboard some vessels, an even lower grade existed called landsmen who were seamen-in-training with very little or no naval skill. The only seamen mustered into the crew of the Bounty were able seamen; the ship did not carry any ordinary seamen or landsmen due to the vessel's long and fairly important mission.
  Note, however, that the young gentlemen might also be rated as seamen rather than midshipmen on the ship's books, though they were still considered the social superiors of the seamen, petty officers (excluding other young gentlemen), and most warrant officers, and could be given authority over them.
  In the immediate wake of the mutiny, all but four of the loyal crew joined Captain Bligh in the long boat for the voyage to Timor, and eventually made it safely back to England, unless otherwise noted in the table below. Four were detained against their will on the Bounty for their needed skills and for lack of space on the long boat. The mutineers first returned to Tahiti, where most of the survivors were later captured by the Pandora and taken to England for trial. Nine mutineers continued their flight from the law and eventually settled on Pitcairn Island, where all but one died before their fate became known to the outside world.
caption: John Adams aka Alexander Smith
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