Cricket in Norfolk Island Cricket in Norfolk Island Cricket is recorded as having been played on Norfolk Island, an external territory of Australia, as early as 1838, by soldiers stationed on the island. It continued to be played after the island was settled in 1856 by Pitcairn Islanders, descended from the mutineers of the "Bounty" and of mixed European and Polynesian stock. John Patteson, an ex-first-class cricketer and future Bishop of Melanesia, was a missionary on Norfolk during that period. From 1876 until well into the 20th century, a match was played annually on Bounty Day, the national holiday, a tradition that was resumed
HMS Gorgon (1785) James Martin, the survivors of a party of convicts who absconded from New South Wales in March 1791 and made it all the way to Kupang in West Timor. She also took on board ten of the mutineers from HMS "Bounty" that had seized in Tahiti and who had survived the wreck of that vessel. During the voyage many of the children on board, including Charlotte Bryant, died of heat and illness. "Gorgon" arrived at Portsmouth on 18 June 1792, discharging her mixed passenger list of marines, escaped convicts, and mutineers. Between March and July 1793 "Gorgon" was fitted as