Early Life
Christian was born on 25 September 1764, at his family home of Moorland Close, Eaglesfield, near Cockermouth in Cumberland. Fletcher was the second youngest son of Charles Christian of Moreland Close and of Ewanrigg Hall in Dearham, Cumberland, an attorney-at-law descended from Manx gentry, and his wife Ann Dixon.
Charles's marriage to Ann brought with it the small property of Moorland Close, "a quadrangle pile of buildings ... half castle, half farmstead." Charles died in 1768 when Fletcher was not yet four. Ann proved herself grossly irresponsible with money. By 1779, when Fletcher was fifteen, Ann had run up a debt of nearly £6,500 (equal to £697,277 today), and faced the prospect of debtors' prison. Moorland Close was lost and Ann and her three younger children were forced to flee to the Isle of Man where English creditors had no power. The three elder Christian sons managed to arrange a £40 (equal to £4,291 today) per year annuity for their mother, allowing the family to live in genteel poverty. Christian spent seven years at the Cockermouth Free School from the age of nine. One of his younger contemporaries there was Cockermouth native William Wordsworth.
He appeared in 1783, now eighteen years old, on the muster rolls of HMS Eurydice outward bound for a 21-month voyage to India. The ship's muster shows Christian's conduct was more than satisfactory because "some seven months out from England, he had been promoted from midshipman to master's mate". Christian twice sailed to Jamaica with Bligh.
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