William Bligh (1754-1817), British naval officer and captain of the ship HMS Bounty. Bligh's crew mutinied in 1787 on a voyage to collect breadfruit trees in Tahiti for introduction to the West Indies. Bligh and 18 men, cast adrift in a small boat with few provisions and no chart, successfully navigated 5400 kilometres to Timor. On a second voyage Bligh successfully collected and delivered the breadfruit. He also explored Tasmania and Fiji, and in 1801 was elected Fellow of the Royal Society for his services to navigation and botany. Engraving by John Conde of a portrait by English painter John Russell (1745-1806), published in Bligh's 1792 account of the mutiny.