Response to Dr. Philip Baker’s rebuttal of my paper, “Midshipman Edward Young, of HMAV
Bounty and Pitcairn Island.”
Philip Baker, as an appendix to Peter Mühlhäusler’s paper entitled, “Ned Young, Creator of
the linguistic landscape of Pitcairn Island,”1. begins his retort to my work, “Midshipman
Edward Young, of HMAV Bounty and Pitcairn Island,”2., with the back-handed quip, “I think
we know a bit more than he allows”. He then proceeds to add nothing but conjecture to
what is known of Edward (Ned) Young’s genealogy. Indeed, the very basis of Dr. Baker’s
rebuttal and Dr. Mühlhäusler’s contention, that Ned is likely the son of Admiral Sir George
Young (1732-1810), is dismissible for the following simple reason.
Dr. Baker writes, “We do know that whoever sired Ed must have been in the
Caribbean 9 months before Ed was born. We do know that Capt. George Young, later
Admiral Sir George was ‘on the West Indies station’ for some years before Ed's birth.”3.
Mühlhäusler makes a similar statement to make the same point, “… that [Admiral Sir George
Young] is known to have been in the West Indies for at least part of the decade in which
Edward was conceived.”4. Both authors are referring to the notation in the Bounty muster
that Ned was born in St. Kitts in approximately 1766 (the muster in 1787 only notes his age:
21). An easy check of the Admiral’s biography by Alan Frost in the Oxford Dictionary of
National Biography reveals the Admiral was indeed stationed in the West Indies in 1761, but
returned to England in 1763, some three years before Ned’s birth.5. At that point, Baker and
Mühlhäusler’s notion of Ned’s pedigree falls apart and can go no further.
The only documented references to Ned’s background, as I mention in my paper, is
the citation in the Bounty muster (birthplace: St. Kitts; age: 21 in 1787) and the entry in
William Bligh’s log that Ned came recommended by Admiral Sir George. Literally,
everything else about Ned is speculation. We don’t know his ethnicity (although, notably,
Bligh never mentions Ned having African features). We don’t know how old he was when
he relocated from St. Kitts to England. We don’t even know if he spoke anything but
English. There is not one reference in the published diaries and journals of those onboard
the Bounty that refers to Ned having a personal knowledge of the West Indies, including a
dropped creole word or intonation, even though the West Indies was the known destination
of that long mission. This was the point of my paper, and it remains the case. We don’t
know any more about Ned than those two items, and theories requiring Ned to be anyone,
anywhere need to be careful how far they reach in the absence of data. Of the guesses
available, I’m still most tantalized by the supposition that Ned was the grandson of the
Admiral’s first-cousin, James Young. In an 1882 Young family-tree that suggests this, what is
notable is the five names listed as possibly being Ned’s father, aunts and uncles are the very
names Ned gives five of his seven children on Pitcairn Island. The two exceptions are a son
named after himself, Edward, and Polly, who might have been Ned’s mother’s name. This
seems more than a coincidence and is the subject of further research.
If I seem a bit miffed, it’s because I’m dismayed that a paper of mine would be
reprinted in its entirety as an appendix in someone else’s work and then critically rebutted
by another, without my knowledge. Moreover, the inclusion of my paper in Mühlhäusler’s
piece, which he entitles “Comments from Rick Kleiner, Norfolk Island,” suggests it is the
result of some kind of collaboration. This opportunity to respond came after publication
and only after being informed by a third-party. The dilemma, of course, is that nothing to
which I’m referring is fresh in readers’ minds. I honed my analytical skills at the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology. The protocol I have come
to expect is a person be notified when his/her work is being reprinted, let alone criticized.
This is more than a courtesy. It is about dialogue and accountability. Maybe linguistics is
different.
I would be delighted if Mühlhäusler and Baker can establish a credible linguistic link
between St. Kitts and Pitcairn Island and I hope their luck improves. The history of early
Pitcairn before the arrival of John Buffett and John Evans in 1823 is especially wrought with
unknowns and contradictions. Information from every aspect and all disciplines, even
conjecture, must be welcomed into the discussion. But it needs to be a discussion.
I’ll end this response with the final words of my original paper:
“… Hopefully, if linguists presently combing the Pitcairn and Norfolk languages for
St. Kittian-derived words can determine a significant number, more than might have been
contributed by Fletcher, who had made two voyages to the West Indies himself and from
court testimony “mixed well” with the locals, we can more confidently infer Ned at least
lived long enough in St. Kitts to learn the local creole and that those words likely came from
him. If this bears out, biographers can start to look to his arriving in England at an older age,
rather than younger. I think we have a ways to go.”
We still have a ways to go.
Rick Kleiner
October 1, 2012
Norfolk Island
1. Paper prepared for Bounty-Pitcairn Conference 2012, Angwin, California, 21 August 2012, Peter
Mühlhäusler, University of Adelaide; http://www.2012bpc.com/muhlhausler-text.pdf
2. “Midshipman Edward Young, of HMAV Bounty and Pitcairn Island,” R. Kleiner, July 8, 2012;
http://rickstours.blogspot.com/2012/09/edward-young-bounty-mutineer.html
3. p. 29.
4. p. 7.
5. Alan Frost, ‘Young, Sir George (1732–1810)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University
Press, 2004; online edn, Jan 2008 [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/30261, accessed 24 Sept 2012]. In
the same paragraph, Frost notes that upon return to England, the Admiral and his wife, Elizabeth, proceeded
to have four children in fairly rapid succession: 1764, 1766, 1767 and 1768.