Fletcher Christian, leader of the mutiny on the Bounty, was born the sixth son and seventh child of Charles and Ann Christian at Moorland Close, near the Lake District, on 25 September, 1764.  His father, Charles, was the fifth son of John Christian, the fourteenth documented head of the Christians of Milntown on the Isle of Man and Ewanrigg in Cumberland.  They were a very prosperous and powerful clan with significant status and Ann, Fletcher’s mother also came from an old, respected Cumbrian family.

The young Fletcher went to Cockermouth Free Grammar School and then St Bees School, near Whitehaven, preparing to go to university like his elder brothers.  Unfortunately however, his father died in 1768 and then in 1779, Fletcher’s mother and elder brothers had to admit bankruptcy.  It appears the sons had borrowed unwisely against Moorland Close to fund their university educations and careers.

Ann took her daughter Mary and two sons, Fletcher and Charles, to live on the Isle of Man.  Fletcher’s social status had plunged dramatically.  He remained at school until 1782, when he had his first voyage on HMS Cambridge.  William Bligh was a lieutenant on the same ship.  In April 1783, at the age of nineteen, he signed on as a midshipman aboard HMS Eurydice and sailed to India. 

It is thought that Fletcher chose a naval career, because unlike the Army, the Navy promoted people on merit and commoners could rise to the rank of naval officer, which was unthinkable in the Army.  The Navy, therefore, gave him the opportunity to regain some of the social status he had lost.

On Fletcher’s return to England, his cousin Dorothy’s husband, suggested that he next serve under William Bligh, reputedly an excellent navigator.  Bligh at first replied that there were no officers’ positions available, but Fletcher wrote to him offering to sign on as an ordinary sailor, just for the learning experience.   Bligh agreed and Fletcher served twice under him on the Britannia before Bligh recommended that Fletcher be signed on as master’s mate on his new vessel, the Bounty.  So it seems that the two men were well acquainted by the time the Bounty started out on its fateful voyage to Tahiti and more than this, they enjoyed quite a degree of mutual respect.

After the mutiny on the Bounty, Captain William Bligh described Fletcher as follows: “master’s mate, aged 24 years, 5 feet 9 inches high, blackish or very dark complexion, dark brown hair, strong made; a star tatooed on his left breast, tatooed on his backside; his knees a little out, and he may be called rather bow legged.  He is subject to violent perspirations, and particularly in his hands, so that he soils any thing he handles.”

After the mutiny, Fletcher led his fellow mutineers, Edward Young, John Mills, William Brown, John Williams, Alexander Smith, Matthew Quintal, William Mickoy, and Isaac Martin, in an attempt to colonise Tubuai and then on a voyage that criss-crossed the Pacific three times, visiting the Society, Austral, Cook, Tonga and Fiji Groups.  They discovered Rarotonga and finally the recorded, but mischarted Pitcairn Island, the last resting place of the Bounty.  Fletcher led the landing party on Pitcairn in 1790, and while a successful settlement was achieved, he had to put down a revolt of the native men within the first year. 

By 1793, Fletcher had two sons, Thursday October and Charles and his Tahitian wife, Maimiti, whom he called Isabella, was expecting their third child. Tragically, unrest again bubbled over among the Polynesian men, Teimua, Niau, Minarii and Tetahiti.  They had been treated poorly by the Englishmen, and they had no women of their own.  In the following rampage, Fletcher Christian lost his life, murdered while tending his garden, close to his house.