Guy Fawkes, Mutiny on The Bounty - The Heywood Family

[Chipper64]

Mary A has suggested i post this story into the forums on this site. Hope you find it interesting:

I was born in Bury and lived in Heywood for my first few years. My dad was also born in Bury but he was raised most of his life in Heywood and we all moved to Bury when I was about 2. My grandparents (on my dad’s side) were still alive and they had always lived in Heywood and the family name was Heywood.

In 1989 one of my Aunties died and I was asked to travel to the funeral in a car with one of my Great Uncles. During the journey, he told us a little bit of history of the town of Heywood and about the Heywood’s of Heywood. He told us briefly about the possibility of connections in the Heywood family to the Guy Fawkes trial and to The Mutiny on the Bounty. It was all very interesting but in the days before the internet, family history was a time consuming hobby and i just didn't have the time required to do it justice. Rather than dismissing the idea of tracing the history completely, I decided to make it a part of my longer term retirement plans hoping that when retired, I would have more time and hopefully enough money to follow it up properly and to visit some of the places where my ancestors lived or worked.

About 7-8 years ago, I saw one of the ‘Mutiny on The Bounty’ films and as we watched, I told my family that “We could be related to someone in this story” and I explained what I’d been told at the funeral years before. It was then that I began to try and pick up some of the pieces and link them together. The first part of the history was quite straight forward; it was a case of asking the living relatives about what they knew and then joining the dots using census records. Doing this, I managed to get back to approx 1815 and a Thomas Heywood of Heywood.

In 2004 i turned 40 so, as a family we decided celebrate this by going to Australia and New Zealand for a holiday. In the weeks running up to our trip, I had a bit of time on my hands so i decided to see if I could carry out some research about the Heywood family and their involvement with Guy Fawkes and with The HMS Bounty. It was then that I came across a website created for ancestors of members of the HMS Bounty’s crewand here that I found out about Peter Heywood.

During the trip to New Zealand, we planned to visit a small town called Russell on the East Coast of the North Island. We found out that it was the original capital of New Zealand but these days it was just a small tourist destination by the sea with a few b&b’s and bars/restaurants. On our arrival, we asked one of the local people for some advice on where to eat and if they could recommend any specific restaurant. “Go down the high street and look for ‘The Bistro’, we use it regularly and ask for a guy called Fletcher, he’ll look after you”. We took this advice and when we arrived in the restaurant, I told the family to get one of the few vacant tables out on the veranda. While they did this, I waited at the bar and was served by a Polynesian looking woman. As I waited to be served, I glanced around the bar to see a considerable amount of articles related to The HMS Bounty story. There were film posters (the one with Charles Laughton and Clark Gable), there were books, paintings and other artefacts. It was then the penny dropped. “Fletcher!!!!” I asked the waitress if she knew if Fletcher was working that night and if I could speak with him. He came out with our food order and he told us he was a descendent of The Fletcher Christian of HMS Bounty. I told him my story about Peter Heywood and we had a good chat. He showed us a framed list of the ships crew and Peter was there along with Fletcher Christian. I did have some doubts during my research because in the film credits the name Heywood had been spelt Hayward and there was no sign of Heywood in the credits. I found out the reason for this. Peter's name had been changed (to avoid confusion with Thomas Hayward in the books and the movies) to Roger Byam. I found this strange because Peter was a Midshipman and he played quite a prominent role in the story of the mutiny (for those interested in the Bounty story can recommend the book by Caroline Alexander - “The True Story of the Mutiny on the Bounty”, the story of what happened after the mutiny is much better than that of the mutiny. British naval searches in the South Pacific, Bligh's navigation skills and the attacks by savages they had to endure as well as the punishments handed out to the mutineers when they were caught).

Back in the restaurant, Fletcher produced a book from behind the bar. In it, I read that Peter Heywood and Fletcher Christian thought that they were actually related. The waitress was Fletcher’s wife, another bar maid was their niece. They explained that their history was from on the Pitcairn Islands in the South Pacific, the location where the mutiny had taken place and where the original Fletcher Christian had fled after the mutiny and destroyed HMS Bounty. They then asked us where we were from and then told us that they had a relative living in the UK. He was a professional rugby player who played for Wigan Rugby League Team. We lived in Wigan too!!

During the research into the Heywood’s, I found that Peter’s family had moved to The Isle of Man and I found much more about HMS Bounty and the mutiny. The Heywood family were well respected and had very high positions on the Isle of Man. They lived in a large house called The Nunnery which is just outside of Douglas and these days it's used as a business school. 3-4 years after the New Zealand trip we took a trip to Douglas. When we arrived, we had a just few hours on the Saturday morning in which to follow up a few leads before the library closed for the weekend. I met a chap called Roger Sims. I’d seen his name as a reference in Caroline Alexander’s book. Roger guided me to a set of hand-written books on large reference tables. They were the type with large cushions which were used to protect the spines of these old, delicate books. These books contained the Heywood family tree and had been illustrated by hand. I found Peter Heywood and his family in one of the books but against one of the names of one of Peter’s ancestors was an arrow indicating a link to The Christian family. I asked Roger if there were any books for the Christian Family and he took me to see them. I followed the arrow reference in the Heywood tree to the corresponding page in the Christian family tree. Here is where I discovered that there was a link between Peter Heywood and Fletcher Christian. Although Peter and Fletcher were good friends, and Fletcher was tasked to look after Peter during their trip, i don't think they knew that they were actually related. One of the really interesting facts i discovered was the ages of the crew. Peter was approx 16-17, Fletcher was in his early 20's and Bligh was about 35!!.

Being keen to research all things related to HMS Bounty, i was interested to read a new "Mutiny on The Bounty" book by John Boyne (Author of "The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas"). However, i was really disappointed to find the author had changed quite a lot of the factual details and had made Peter Heywood to be a really nasty character. My research has shown that Peter was far from this. He was well like and respected by his crew.

Peter Heywood had an uncle who was named Peter “Powder Plot” Heywood. The uncle was reported to be the man who captured Guy Fawkes. On capturing Guy Fawkes, Peter kept Guy Fawkes’s lantern and several years later, this lantern was presented to The Ashmolean Library in Oxford .

Although I’ve not been able to directly connect my own tree to this Heywood network, I feel it is only a matter of finding a few more links and I’ll be there. The town of Heywood isn’t a particularly big place and there are many other Heywood’s that still live there. It appears as though the Heywood’s were quite a prominent family in the North West of England and had quite an influence on British History.

Other prominent Heywoods include:

Arthur Heywood of Heywood’s Bank in Liverpool. Heywood’s Bank has been taken over several times over the years by what is now known as Barclays Bank. I've read somewhere that the wealth of the bank came during the slave trade. The original bank used to be in Brunswick St in Liverpool and there is a plaque on the wall. Adjacent to this is The Heywood House Hotel.


I shall continue to try and establish that link with my Heywood family tree and The Heywood’s of Heywood and if anyone out there has any useful info to do this please let me know.

[MaryA]

That's a great story, thanks for posting. I hope some Heywoods read it and make contact.

I'll leave it here for a while and then move it onto the "For Posterity" Board.

[dickiesam]

Hi Chipper64,
Thank for the post. A fascinating read! Hopefully you have a fair bit of time ahead of you to finish the saga, and even get into print.
Good luck,

DS

[MaryA]

One place it certainly should be printed is in our Journal, the Liverpool Historian. If you send it to the Editor it will be published in a future issue and reach a wider audience than on here.