Able-bodied Seaman on board the Bounty.

A mutineer.

Thomas Ellison was the ship's youngest crew member (just 15 when the Bounty sailed for Tahiti). Yet he had already sailed with Bligh on the Britannia. He was a protege of Duncan Campbell, Mrs. Bligh's uncle, so it would have been difficult for the captain not to take him along. In a letter to Campbell, written at the beginning of the voyage, Bligh stated: "Tom Ellison is a very good Boy and will do very well." He must often have regretted those words later.

Bligh's description of Ellison, written after the mutiny, reads as follows:

"17 years, 5 feet 3 inches high. Fair complexion, dark hair, strong made.

Has his name tattooed under his right arm, and dated "October 25, 1788."

Ellison was in Christian's watch and on the morning of the mutiny he was at the wheel. When the mutiny broke out, he was at first "Terrifyde," as he later testified during the court-martial, but – like several others among the crew – he soon became elated at the turn of events, in fact he lashed the wheel, took a bayonet and waved it in Bligh's face and shouted: "Damn him, I will be sentinel over him!"

Ellison remained on Tahiti when Christian sailed away and took part in the war against Teina's (Mate's) enemies. When the Pandora arrived, he gave himself up voluntarily together with Morrison and Norman. He survived the wreck of the Pandora and was in the same boat as Morrison on the voyage to Timor. He was treated as cruelly as Morrison being "pinnioned with a cord and lash'd down in the boat's bottom."

At the court-martial Ellison tried to plead his youth at the time of the mutiny, but that did not impress the court: youth was no excuse for mutiny, there were thousands of young boys in the Navy. Ellison did have the satisfaction, however, of corroborating Burkett's testimony concerning Hayward and Hallett having begged to be allowed to stay on board the Bounty, and he added that they had "weep't bitterly' when they were ordered into the launch.

On October 29, 1792, Ellison and fellow mutineers Thomas Burkett and John Millward were hanged aboard the HMS Brunswick at Spithead, England.

As was usually the case with mutineers, their bodies were left to rot on gibbets as a warning to other sailors, and never given a proper burial.

(updated by bluegums)