Mutiny is perhaps the most emotive word in any Navy's language. It refers to both individual and group refusal to obey orders, and is usually associated with bloody uprisings on the part of the mutineers.

However, the great mutiny in the Royal Navy at Spithead in 1797 was a quiet, orderly affair where discontented crews sought a much-deserved improvement in their living conditions.

There was much agreement in the Navy and beyond that the sailors' complaints were justified, and their demands were met, and the ringleaders were not punished.

Other mutinies in the Royal Navy included the Invergordon Mutiny of 1931, where crews rebelled against a pay cut that had been ordered; again the discontent was seen as justified.

In the famous revolt against LEUT William's Bligh's command of the Bounty in 1789, the crew mutinied - after cohabiting with Tahiti women for five months - when Bligh took her to sea to fulfil his orders to transport breadfruit seeds to the West Indies.

Led by Fletcher Christian, the mutineers set Bligh and his supporters adrift in the ship's longboat.

Sixteen of those remaining on Bounty returned to Tahiti, but nine others settled on Pitcairn Island, burning the Bounty to the waterline.

Bligh seems to have got bad press over the years and those who remained loyal to him and subsequently undertook the epic voyage from the Pacific through to Timor attested to his firm but fair rule.

The RN pursued the mutineers for several years after Bligh's return to England, and consequently captured and hanged several, although those who escaped colonised Pitcairn Island.

Bligh was faced with more insurrection in his career - the Rum Rebellion of 1808 when he was governor of NSW.

A famous mutiny in the Russian Navy - later immortalised in the film Battleship Potemkin (1925) began in 1905 when rotten meat was taken on board the Potemkin and the sailors refused to eat the soup which was subsequently made from it.

A struggle on the quarterdeck occurred when the men gathered there, and a sailor was killed in the struggle with the ship's officers. This incident stirred up unrest in the city of Odessa, where the ship was alongside, and this was violently suppressed by the local military.

The Potemkin fired shots against the shore in support of the local rebels and the rest of the Russian fleet was brought in to subdue the ship, but no return shots were fired. One other ship joined the Potemkin in mutiny, but later ran aground. The Potemkin soon left Odessa and the sailors eventually sought asylum in Romania.

In the RAN we have been comparatively free of such major disturbances. However, one mutiny occurred in Australian waters before the birth of our Navy in 1911.

This incident concerned HMA ships Firefly and Victoria, which left Melbourne in 1861 on a voyage to northern Australia.

The ships were parted in a cyclone near the Great Barrier Reef and Firefly ran aground on a reef. Her consort found her two days later with all of the crew completely drunk on rum taken from the cargo. The mutiny was put down and the ship repaired and refloated.

The RAN's best-known mutiny occurred in mid-1919, when, after some years away, HMAS Australia was on her way back to the crew's homeland. She came alongside in Fremantle and was due to sail again on Sunday, June 1.

Some hours before her departure a large group of sailors assembled on the quarterdeck and appointed spokesmen to voice concerns to the ship's captain. These were basically a request for the ship to delay her sailing time to allow further shore leave for the crew to meet friends and family.

Captain Cumberlege refused, and as a result some sailors took action which prevented the ship from leaving on time.

Almost a month later, five sailors faced a court martial in Sydney over the incident. They were all found guilty of mutiny and sentenced to prison sentences, the maximum of which was two years.

A public outcry ensued. Supporters of the sailors argued that Australians were not amenable to this type of discipline and the sentences were 'savage'.

The court failed to comprehend the conditions the sailors had been putting up with in war - and all of this resulted in the sentences being commuted.

The two most senior members of the Navy - RADM Grant, and CDRE Dumaresq - immediately tendered their resignations in protest.

These however were subsequently withdrawn when both were pressured to do so, and there the matter ended.