Capt William Bligh’s finest moment at Battle of Camperduin was immortalised in the Sydney suburb of Camperdown
MOST Sydneysiders know where Camperdown is, but how many know it is actually named after the Dutch town of Camperduin and a battle that took place 220 years ago today?
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MOST Sydneysiders know where Camperdown is, but how many know it is actually named after the Dutch town of Camperduin?
Once a large property outside the main town of Sydney, it would be reasonable to assume the name came from two places in Britain named Camperdown. But those, too, were also named after the Dutch town.
It is one of those strange quirks of history that an Australian suburb took its name from a place north of Amsterdam. The story begins with a British officer named William Bligh and a battle that took place 220 years ago today.
The Battle of Camperdown was a moment of redemption for Bligh, whose name was already infamous for the Mutiny on the Bounty in 1789. Born in 1754 in Devon, England, Bligh’s father, Francis Bligh, was a customs official. His mother Jane (nee Pearce) was a 40-year-old widow when she married Francis and gave birth to William the following year.
Bligh joined the Royal Navy in 1770 and rose to sailing master in 1776 under James Cook on the Resolution. Lacking a ship after the war with America ended in 1783, Bligh commanded merchant ships to the West Indies. He was uniquely qualified when, in 1786, the British navy appointed him to command the Bounty on a voyage to collect breadfruit plants from Tahiti to deliver to British colonies in the West Indies.
The Bounty sailed in December 1787, but Bligh’s second-in-command, Fletcher Christian, led a mutiny in April 1789. Bligh and 18 others were forced off the Bounty onto a small launch and sailed more than 5800km to Timor, to make his way back to England.
Honourably acquitted by a court martial, Bligh suffered bad publicity from Christian’s family who depicted him as a tyrant. In 1791 Bligh commanded Providence to complete the breadfruit mission, returning in 1793.
In 1795 he was appointed commander of the Calcutta and, in October 1796, helped put down a mutiny on the Defiance. When the Calcutta was later transferred to the Transport Board, Bligh was given command of HMS Director.
Through no fault of Bligh, in May 1797 the crew of Director took part in a strike aboard several naval ships, known as the Nore Mutiny. It was a protest over poor conditions, especially the impressment (forced service) of many of the seamen. When it ended the strikers stayed with Bligh and were there when the Director took a prominent role in the Battle of Camperdown.
The Netherlands had fallen to the French in 1795 and, early in 1797, a Dutch fleet under the command of Vice Admiral Jan De Winter prepared to sail from a Dutch port to join the French fleet for an invasion of Ireland.
The British, under Admiral Adam Duncan, had a tense few months when the Dutch, hearing about the Nore Mutiny, prepared to make their break. But Duncan, deserted by his fleet, kept up the blockade of the Dutch coast by disguising his ship as a different ship each day and sending signals to non-existent ships, convincing De Winter not to make a move and bought the British time until the mutiny was over.
De Winter eventually abandoned his plan of joining the French fleet, leading to the recall of most of the British blockade ships from Dutch waters for a refit. De Winter saw this as an opportunity to make a sweep of the North Sea and destroy any British ships.
Word soon reached Duncan that De Winter was on the move, and on October 11, 1797, the two fleets met in the biggest naval encounter between the two nations in that war. The Dutch lost 11 ships. De Winter’s flagship Vrijheid, put up resistance until Bligh brought Director alongside and boarded the Dutch vessel, ending the battle. Bligh escorted De Winter to the Venerable where he formally surrendered.
Bligh later served under Admiral Horatio Nelson at the battle of Copenhagen in 1802, then did surveying work for some years. He was court martialled (but acquitted) for using abusive language in 1805.
Appointed governor of the colony of NSW, he arrived in Sydney in 1806. He was given a grant of 97ha, which he named Camperdown, after his finest moment in battle. But in January 1808 Bligh was again involved in a mutiny, later dubbed the “Rum Rebellion” led by the soldiers known as the Rum Corps, for their monopoly of the alcohol trade.
Bligh left the colony in 1810, but his widowed daughter Mary married Maurice O’Connell, commander of the regiment sent out to replace the Rum Corps. She and O’Connell took up residence at Camperdown, but left the colony in 1814 when O’Connell’s regiment was transferred to Ceylon.
Bligh died in 1817 and the lands reverted to the Crown in 1823. It was sold off as farms and for housing, but part of it was also used as a racecourse from 1827. It would later become best known as the site of the Prince Alfred Hospital which opened in 1882.
Originally published as Capt William Bligh’s finest moment at Battle of Camperduin was immortalised in the Sydney suburb of Camperdown
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