Bounty Day Bounty Day Bounty Day is a holiday on both Pitcairn Island, destination of the HMS "Bounty" mutineers, and on Norfolk Island. It is celebrated on 23 January on Pitcairn, and on 8 June on Norfolk Island, the day that the descendants of the mutineers arrived on the island. It is named for the "Bounty", although the ship never saw Norfolk Island. Bounty Day is celebrated on Pitcairn Island on 23 January, in commemoration of the burning of the HMS "Bounty" by the mutineers in 1790. Model replicas, made by the islanders, are burned. Bounty Day is the national holiday of
Mutiny on the Bounty officers. These signed the ship's roster as able seamen, but were quartered with the midshipmen and treated on equal terms with them. Most of "Bounty"'s crew were chosen by Bligh or were recommended to him by influential patrons. William Peckover the gunner and Joseph Coleman the armourer had been with Cook and Bligh on HMS "Resolution"; several others had sailed under Bligh more recently on the "Britannia". Among these was the 23-year-old Fletcher Christian, who came from a wealthy Cumberland family descended from Manx gentry. Christian had chosen a life at sea rather than the legal career envisaged by his