Pitcairn Islands 1940 Stamp. King George VI Definitive 2d. SG#4. MLH.

The stamp depicts Ltd. Bligh and the "Bounty".

The British ship HMS Swallow found the island in 1767, and its captain, Philip Carteret, named it Pitcairn for the sailor who first sighted it. Its population is descended from the mutineers of the British ship HMS Bounty and their Tahitian Polynesian consorts. In 1789, on a voyage from Tahiti to the West Indies with a cargo of breadfruit saplings, the crew, led by the first mate, Fletcher Christian, mutinied and set their captain, William Bligh, and a number of loyal sailors adrift and set course for the Austral Islands. The mutineers and their Tahitian companions eventually reached uninhabited Pitcairn, went ashore, and then burned the ship.