This exhibition not only remembers a notable West Countryman and significant national figure, in the 200th anniversary year of his death, telling a story that challenges the more commonly known Hollywood depiction; it also brings to life one of the greatest small-boat survival stories in history, featuring relics from the voyage and a specially built replica of the Bounty launch, giving a very real sense of the situation of the 18 men who sailed it over 3600 nautical miles across the Pacific Ocean. The exhibition also takes a globally important story, and explores the Cornwall context, in this case Bligh’s Cornish roots.

Lieutenant William Bligh, then commanding HM armed transport Bounty in the Pacific, is remembered for the famous mutiny led by his acting lieutenant, Fletcher Christian, in April 1789. Bligh and his loyal men were cast adrift mid-ocean in the Bounty’s 23-foot launch in the expectation they would die. In a remarkable feat of seamanship, Bligh sailed the heavily overloaded launch to safety across 3600 miles of open sea from Tonga to Timor, in the East Indies. This journey has been described as one of the greatest small-boat survival voyages, a triumph of endurance, navigation and leadership against extraordinary odds.

The exhibition brings this grueling journey to life through a faithful reproduction of the Bounty launch and with original relics from the voyage – Bligh's coconut bowl, bullet-weight (used for measuring the meagre rations), horn beaker and the magnifying glass he used to light cooking fires once they reached the Great Barrier Reef, all on loan from the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. A fine model of the Bounty has also come from Greenwich and one of William Hodges’s magnificent paintings of Tahiti, from Cook’s second voyage.

The exhibition also challenges the myths and stereotypical perceptions created by the various Hollywood depictions. There have been three popular films based on the incident: Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), starring Clark Gable and Charles Laughton as Christian and Bligh; Marlon Brando and Trevor Howard appeared were cast in the 1962 version, while The Bounty (1984) had Mel Gibson confronting Anthony Hopkins. Each presents a fairly straightforward dramatic tale of Bligh as ‘villain’ versus Fletcher Christian as romantic hero. The exhibition, by contrast, outlines the historical facts to show that ‘the past is another country’, with different rules but where clashes of personality – especially in unusual circumstances – produced human and ‘managerial’ conflicts that still occur today.

Richard Doughty, Director of NMMC says, “In many ways Bligh is absolutely a traditional maritime subject for us, something people would expect us to do, but we present it in a surprising way, challenging the Hollywood story, raising questions around traditional perceptions, and exploring the connection to Cornwall.

“Our 2017 exhibitions and programming continue to grow our reputation as a Museum that brings ancient artefacts from national and international collections to Cornwall, the like of which are rarely seen outside of London and the UK’s other metropolitan centres.”

Captain Bligh: Myth, Man and Mutiny has been curated for the National Maritime Museum Cornwall by Dr Pieter van der Merwe, General Editor and Curator Emeritus at the National Maritime Museum, Royal Museums Greenwich.

Dr Pieter van der Merwe says, ‘The exhibition tells a tale of which many people will almost certainly have heard but have probably got quite misleading perceptions from the three well-known Hollywood films on the subject. Bligh remains generally cast as villain in the public view of the story but the exhibition shows how Bligh’s tale is really one of a flawed personality surviving extraordinary circumstances.’

The building of the boat is part of a programme of reconstructions of historical craft in the Museum’s boatbuilding workshop. It is being led by professional and accomplished local boatbuilder, Andrew Nancarrow, supported by the Museum’s new trainee Boat Curator, Ollie Crediton and Advanced Apprentice in Boat Conservation, Reuben Thompson, and a small team of Museum Volunteers and students from Falmouth Marine School. The Museum team has carried out extensive in-house research to ensure the boat is as faithful a reproduction as possible. This boat is one of a number of complete replicas that have been built in the Museum and the team are keen to continue recreating important craft that no longer exist.

While at face value the Captain Bligh exhibition addresses a completely different subject to the NMMC’s other 2017 exhibition Tattoo: British Tattoo Art Revealed, the two are surprisingly and inextricably linked in that Bligh had identified the Mutineers by the Tattoos on their bodies.

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