The history of Golden Grove Great House Barbados

1. GOLDEN GROVE
HISTORY WITHIN A HOUSE
Geology: the rock supporting the house is the
“Golden Grove Terrace”, scientifically dated
Human “Pre-history”: the earliest inhabitants of
Barbados “Amerindians” lived close by Golden Grove
attracted by the water of the Three Houses spring
Recorded history: early British colonists also came
to the spring with settlement in 1639 by Capn Skeete
Golden Grove became a separate plantation in 1674
A pivotal moment for the island of the slave revolt in
1816 ended largely at Golden Grove
In 1908 a famous philanthropist and politician,
Florence Daysh, was born at Golden Grove
The Great House today is structurally very similar to
when she was born so that a visit to Golden Grove
echoes the gentility of that era

2. HISTORY OF GOLDEN GROVE
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Geology
Time has a geologic scale.
The“Quaternary” period began c. 2.5
million years ago and developed into a
warmer or “interglacial” period called
the Holocene epoch around 11,000 years
ago, enabling the rise of human
civilisation.
The epoch prior to this is known as the
“Pleistocene”. The rocky area around
Golden Grove was created in the Middle
Pleistocene. A team of American
scientists analysed coral deposits from
the “Golden Grove Terrace” in 1990,
dating them as 230,000-216,000 years
old (shown on the map).

3. HISTORY OF GOLDEN GROVE
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Geology (continued)
The corals analysed at Golden Grove
were:
Acropora Palmata (or “Elkhorn” –first
right, once prolific but now on the
Endangered Species list) and
Montastrea Cavernosa (or “Great
Star”- next right, the predominant
coral at 40 to 100 below sea level
Coral terraces in Barbados like
Golden Grove are in geological terms
very “young” but have been formed
adjacent to rock that is much older- in
the Scotland district being perhaps
over 40 million years old.

4. HISTORY OF GOLDEN GROVE
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Water and Food : The Arrival of Humans
Human settlement has two requirements: potable water and
access to food.
The area around Golden Grove provides both: its current
northern boundary is Three Houses stream, fed from a spring
nearby. A little further north-east is a bay where fishermen
still set out to sea.
Pre-colonial human activity in this locality is perhaps no
surprise. However archaeological research of Amerindian
settlements in Barbados found few remains inland so that
the site by the spring of Three Houses is important.
A new excavation in 2015 would be very lucky to find an
example as famous as the “Conch Man” (right)!
Why the Amerindians left Barbados remains a mystery- but
knowledge of Barbados from the Lokono in Guyana remained
- they knew how to navigate the difficult waters of its eastern
shores. The ancient name for Barbados, Ichirouganaim, may
have meant “island with white teeth” or reefs.

5. HISTORY OF GOLDEN GROVE
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English Settlement (arrived 1625, settled 1627)
The first known map by Ligon is shown opposite.
In 1630 Captain Henry Hawley was made Governor of
Barbados. Hawley cashed in by selling land to new
English colonists, arriving to make their fortune.
Captain Francis Skeete purchased 4,500 acres of land
from Governor Hawley in 1638 (right of the camels!)
Legitimacy of this huge deal was questioned in a
commission of 1640. Only land that now includes
Three Houses, Thicketts, Wiltshire and Golden Grove
plantations (substantial at 1,160 acres) proved legal.
Whilst Skeete continued in occupation, he was broke
and mortgaged 500 acres to his brother-in-law William
Hilliard in 1643 shortly before his death, aged only 31.
Hilliard then funded his sister’s new husband and his
two young nephews to take over Three Houses.
Skeete is remembered in the name of the local bay.
His journey from life in Surrey to plantation ownership
was indeed a “one-way ticket”.

6. HISTORY OF GOLDEN GROVE
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English Settlement (continued)
Early plantations grew a variety of cash
crops, initially tobacco and cotton.
In the 1640s planters discovered how to
grow sugar well and land prices soared.
In a lease of Three Houses in 1658, the
plantation includes sugar, indigo and
cotton. Its inventory (right) includes 5 men
& 5 women negroes, 5 cowes (sic) and 1
bull. The condescension to humanity is that
each negro is named!
At the end of the lease Negroes and Cattle
had to be delivered back to the Lessor- or
an equivalent number given fatalities.
There can be no clearer indication of the
mentality of the time.

7. HISTORY OF GOLDEN GROVE
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Sugar
Golden Grove became independent in 1674.
“Ince”, another Captain, & his relations owned
a house and 136 acre plantation till 1721.
The triangular trade, guns to Africa, slaves to
Barbados, sugar to England, created huge
profits for larger landowners. The “ten-acre”
or smaller settlers largely disappeared.
Planters enjoyed a comfortable “family life”.
Mary Ince married Robert Hackett in 1702.
“Hacketts” passed in her will to Henry Evans,
then to his nephew Walker, and in 1785 to
Elliot Grasset, who seems unrelated.
For the slaves it was a different- and largely
unrecorded story. A slave song (right) from the
1770s, annotated by William Sharp, the
abolitionist, from conversations with a
secretary to the Governor of Barbados, tells of
the huge uncertainties of slave life.

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The Grassets, Golden Grove & Insurrection
Elliot Grasset, whose wealth from sugar sent his
son to Eton, was borne illegitimate, but still from
a planter family, earning a higher place by dint of
knowledge and hard work.
Hacketts was renamed “Golden Grove”- popular
in the Caribbean. No doubt it was golden, for the
Grasset family- both Elliot and his son William
became members for St Philip of the Barbados
Assembly, at a time when such honours were
still reserved for the Plantocracy.
But the Grassets also endured the largest
uprising Barbados has ever had. The slave revolt
of 1816 is popularly known as the “Bussa revolt”
after one of its leaders, who was a “senior” slave
at Baileys, which borders Golden Grove.
A Private Letter from a soldier stationed at St
Ann’s Fort (fragments right) testifies how about
400 insurgents, assembled at Baileys, fled to “Mr
Grasset’s” house, pursued by British soldiers.

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An Extraordinary Emblematic Flag
What really drove the insurgents? The
Private Letter mentions an “extraordinary
emblematic flag” which they carried. A
copy (right) taken from the British Library
includes the words “Royal Endeavour”.
Did the insurgents believe they had a
legitimate claim authorised by the British
(and that local planters were denying a
freedom granted by the British Empire)?
If so the words in the British soldier’s
letter quoting the events at Golden Grove
are poignant: “The insurgents did not
think that our men (Bourbon Blacks)
would fight against black men, but thank
God they were deceived”:
a double disappointment for the rebels,
British soldiers attacked the insurgents
and included within the ranks of the
British were local black soldiers.

10. HISTORY OF GOLDEN GROVE
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Change and Chancery
In the end, in a way the rebels were right. The
British government did outlaw slavery in its
Empire in 1834, after domestic religious and
moral pressure and a final revolt in Jamaica.
The planters- but not the slaves- received
compensation. A devastating hurricane of
1831 had hit Barbados, including Golden
Grove, parts of which today date from that
time (the “Georgian” style shown opposite).
The Grasset family owned Golden Grove until
1854, selling for £10,000. Had their luck run
out? 13 years later the property was sold
again for £16,500 (with the same 287 acres).
The second half of the 19th
century saw two
registrations in the debtor-ridden Chancery
Court for Golden Grove, indicating problems
for the estate as ownership again changed
hands. Plantations were often heavily
mortgaged and the fall in sugar prices in this
period took a heavy toll.

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Resilience and Reunion
Another chapter for Golden Grove began in
1905 with its purchase by Howard Smith
and Mr S. Browne, perhaps the principal
financier. Howard Smith was a white
planter who, against his class and colour,
married a coloured woman, Eveline. It is
said that many ostracised him but this did
not seem to hinder his progress when sugar
prices took a turn for the better and the
resilience of planters shone through.
Howard and Eveline had a daughter,
Florence, born at Golden Grove in 1908.
She was the most influential woman
politician of her day in Barbados.
Howard managed Golden Grove, Thicketts,
Three Houses and Fortescue, in a syndicate
with Brown that also owned Three Houses
factory with its link to the railway (partly
sold in a huge deal in 1920- above right)
Florence Daysh at Election Time
In 1958 Florence, a noted
philanthropist and OBE, was
elected to the West Indies
Federal Parliament, as the only
woman from Barbados, defeating
Errol Barrow. Previously she had
been elected to the Vestry of St
Philip and the Legislative Council,
in both cases as only the second
woman in a long parliamentary
history. In her maiden speech to
Parliament she declared: “I am a
woman of colour, and proud of
it.”

12. HISTORY OF GOLDEN GROVE
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The End of Plantation Life (at Golden Grove)
Brown and the syndicate funding Three Houses et al
must have considered Golden Grove surplus to their
requirements as it was sold in 1921 for £16,000.
The last chapter in Golden Grove’s history as a
plantation began. Herbert and then his son Geoffrey
Manning ran a plantation when St Philip was still full
of sugar cane for about 50 years, including the
hardship period of the 1930s.
Geoffrey Manning was known as a keen sportsman-
one founder of the Barbados Rally Club in 1957.
By 1970 the economic viability of sugar at Golden
Grove was finally in doubt. This was also the year
that the sugar factory at Three Houses closed.
The land at Golden Grove was apportioned to create
smaller farming interests. Later it passed to a newer
resident to the island, in the up-coming dominant
industry of tourism and hospitality- its life today.
And it is in this world that Golden Grove fits today.