Departures of note

In 1789, Fletcher Christian was serving on HMS Bounty. After a five-month layover in Tahiti, relations between Bligh and the crew deteriorated. On 28 April 1789, Christian led a mutiny, forcing Bligh and eighteen loyal crewmen into a small boat. Christian then sailed the Bounty back to Tahiti, where he married Maimiti, a chief's daughter, and attempted to establish a colony on Tubuai, but conflict with natives forced him to abandon it. He dropped off sixteen crewmen in Tahiti and, with eight other mutineers, six Tahitian men, and eleven Tahitian women, sailed eastward to Pitcairn Island, where they stripped and burned the vessel.

Fletcher Christian was born on 25 September 1764 at Moorland Close, Eaglesfield, Cumberland, England. His father, Charles Christian, an attorney descended from Manx gentry, died when Fletcher was not yet four. By 1779, his mother, Ann, had accumulated debts of nearly £6,500, forcing the family to flee to the Isle of Man to escape creditors. Christian spent seven years at Cockermouth Free School, where William Wordsworth was a younger contemporary, though Christian was six years older.

Christian began his naval career late, joining the Royal Navy as a cabin boy at seventeen. He served on HMS Cambridge under William Bligh, then on HMS Eurydice, where he was promoted to master's mate. After being paid off, he joined Bligh's merchant vessel Britannia, rising to second mate. In 1787, Bligh appointed him master's mate on HMS Bounty for a voyage to transport breadfruit from Tahiti to the West Indies. Bligh later made him acting lieutenant, senior to the ship's master, John Fryer.

On Pitcairn, the sexual imbalance and enslavement of the Tahitian men led to insurrection. Christian was reportedly shot while working by a pond, according to a woman named Jenny who left the island in 1817. John Adams, the sole surviving mutineer, gave conflicting accounts of Christian's death, variously claiming he died of natural causes, committed suicide, became insane, or was murdered. Christian was survived by Maimiti and three children, including Thursday October Christian, and is the ancestor of many with the surname Christian on Pitcairn and Norfolk Islands.