Peter Heywood was a British naval officer who was on board HMS Bounty during the mutiny of 28 April 1789. He was later captured in Tahiti, tried and condemned to death as a mutineer, but subsequently pardoned. He resumed his naval career and eventually retired with the rank of post-captain, after 29 years of honourable service.
About Peter Heywood in brief
Peter Heywood was a British naval officer who was on board HMS Bounty during the mutiny of 28 April 1789. He was later captured in Tahiti, tried and condemned to death as a mutineer, but subsequently pardoned. He resumed his naval career and eventually retired with the rank of post-captain, after 29 years of honourable service. The extent of Heywood’s true guilt has been clouded by contradictory statements and possible false testimony. The Heywood ancestry can be traced back to the 12th century; a prominent forebear was Peterpowderplot, who arrested Guy Fawkes after the 1605 plot to blow up the English parliament. Heywood remained in the navy until 1816, building a respectable career as a hydrographer, and then enjoyed a long and peaceful retirement. His family had a tradition of naval and military service, and he was distantly related to Fletcher Christian’s family, which had been established on the Isle of Man for centuries. In 1786 at the age of 14, Heywood left St Bees School in England to join HMS Powerful, a powerful vessel at Plymouth. In August 1787 he was offered a berth on the Bounty for an extended cruise to the Pacific Ocean under the command of Lieutenant William Bligh. His father, Peter John Heywood, had been dismissed by the Duke of Atholl for grossmanagement and embezzlement of funds. He came from a family with strong naval connections, and was granted the privileges of a junior officer.
Although unranked, he was granted a series of promotions that gave him his first command at the Age of 27 and made him a post- Captain at 31. In September 1792 he was court-martialed and with five others was sentenced to hang. However, the court recommended mercy for Heywood and King George III pardoned him. He had a son, Peter, who was born in 1772 at the Nunnery, in Douglas, Island of Man. The family lived for several years in Whitehaven, England before the father’s appointment as agent for the Duke’s Manx properties brought them back to Douglas. The father was forced by a financial crisis to sell The Nunnery and leave the island in 1773, and the family moved back to Whitehaven. Peter Heywood died in 1787, aged 28, at the home of his father, John Heywood. He is buried in St Bees, near Plymouth, on the island of St Bees in the Parish of St Vincent and St Mary, in the parish of St Mary’s, near the town of Loughborough, in Hampshire. He died in 1816. He has been described as a “wonderful man” and a “tremendous sailor” by the descendants of his forebears, including his great-great-grandfather, Peter John Heywood, who had served in the First World War. His great-grandson, Peter John, was also a naval officer and served in World War II.
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This page is based on the article Peter Heywood published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 02, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
