Governor Clifford Orchestrates Goodman’s Bay To Prospect Land Grab for Bay Street Oligarchs 1937

By the 1930s, quite a lot of the land comprising the western district of New Providence was crown land. Vast parcels that had been the subject of old grants—including the expansive tracts known as “Chapmans” “Andrew Deveaux” “Prospect” “Goodman’s” and “the Grove” had reverted to the crown either through repurchase or expiration of the original grants.

Prior to 1964, crown land registry was the sole remit of the Governor. No legislative oversight. No public accountability. Just the Governor’s signature, converting public assets into private fortunes.

After 1964, the Crown Land Registry was moved from the Governor’s control to the Premier’s control. After January 7, 1964 a new Bahamas Constitution came into force.

The Conveyance: Colonial Pomp Masking Naked Theft

In 1937, Governor Bede Clifford sold the remainder of land known as “the Grove,” “Goodman’s,” “Prospect,” “Andrew Deveaux,” and “Chapmans” to a company called Prospect, Limited for £27,500.

Everything labelled A, B, C, D, E, F, G were all sold in one transaction.

In 1937, Governor Bede Clifford executed a land transaction that would reshape New Providence’s western development corridor forever.

Acting purportedly on behalf of the Bahamian people, Clifford sold a vast tract encompassing portions of the Grove, Goodman’s Bay, the Twin Lakes Addition (including Prospect Ridge and Skyline Drive), and stretching from the coastline to Lake Cunningham—reserving only the golf course from the sale.

The buyers were members of what became known as the Christie land cabal: Harold G. Christie, Frank Holmes Christie, Guy Robert Baxter, and other unidentified Bay Street merchants. This consortium acquired prime real estate that bordered Twin Lakes and commanded some of the most valuable coastal and elevated terrain on the island.

Prospect, Limited bought everything from the sea to Lake Cunningham. They were the ultimate hogs, the ultimate robber barons, the ultimate opportunists—the epitome of gross profiteering oligarchs seizing public patrimony for private gain.

The conveyance, dated the 30th day of January 1937 and recorded in Bahamas Registry X.13 pages 129-133, reads like a masterpiece of colonial theater:

“Between His Excellency The Honourable Sir Bede Edmund Hugh Clifford, Knight Commander of the Most Distinguished Order of Saint Michael and Saint George, Companion of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath, Member of the Royal Victorian Order, Governor and Commander-in-Chief in and over the Bahama Islands, Vice-Admiral and Ordinary of the same for and on behalf of the Government of the Bahaman Islands…”

Note that phrase: “for and on behalf of the Government of the Bahama Islands.”

Bede Clifford was not acting on behalf of the government of the Bahama Islands. He was not acting on behalf of the Bahamian people. He was acting on behalf of Bay Street oligarchs—facilitating the transfer of massive public holdings into the hands of a private company controlled by the Christie family and their associates.

The ornate colonial titles—Knight Commander, Companion of the Bath, Vice-Admiral—dress up what was essentially a sanctioned robbery. All that pomp and circumstance, all those distinguished orders and honorifics, served to legitimize the conversion of crown land—land that belonged to the Bahamian people—into the private property of a handful of white merchants and speculators.

From Sea to Lake: The Scale of the Theft

Prospect, Limited didn’t just acquire a beach lot or a modest parcel. They secured everything from the coastline to Lake Cunningham—a vast swath of western New Providence that would become some of the most valuable real estate in the Bahamas including Goodman’s Bay. This was prime land, positioned for future development as Nassau expanded westward.

The 1937 Prospect Limited transaction was not an isolated incident. It was part of a broader pattern of colonial-era land transfers that concentrated Bahamian resources in the hands of Bay Street elites while ordinary Bahamians remained landless and disenfranchised. These transactions laid the foundation for generational wealth among oligarchic families while ensuring that the majority of Black Bahamians had no stake in their own country’s most valuable asset: land.

The Mechanism: Unchecked Power

Prior to 1964, the Governor controlled crown land registry with virtually no oversight. The House of Assembly—dominated by Bay Street merchants who were often the beneficiaries of these transactions—provided no check on the authority of the appointed Governor. There was no requirement for public bidding, no transparency in pricing, no consideration of whether selling off vast public holdings served the interests of the Bahamian people.

The Governor simply decided, signed, and conveyed. Public land became private property. The people’s patrimony became oligarchic profit.

The Christie Connection

The Christie brothers were a tight knit brood.

A few years after this 1937 land grab and other robber baron transactions of similar magnitude, Frank’s boss brother Harold G. Christie would face the greatest crisis of his life. On the morning of July 8, 1943, after allegedly discovering the murdered body of Sir Harry Oakes, Christie’s first call was not to the police, but to his brother Frank Holmes Christie. This detail reveals the depth of their relationship and has become one of the most scrutinized aspects of one of the 20th century’s most notorious unsolved murders.

The Christie brothers’ professional partnership was as close as their personal bond. Together, Harold and Frank Holmes Christie transformed H.G. Christie Ltd. from a modest 1922 startup into the Bahamas’ dominant real estate firm.

By 1938, this Christie family were known as the largest real estate owning family in The Bahamas.

Frank Holmes Christie’s involvement in Prospect Limited is particularly significant given his brother Harold G. Christie’s central role in the Bay Street oligarchy and later connections to Axel Wenner-Gren and the Duke of Windsor. Harold Christie would go on to gift Wood Cay to Marguerite Wenner-Gren in 1941, as revealed in recently discovered land registry documents. The Christie family’s fingerprints are all over the colonial-era land grabs that converted Bahamian public assets into private fortunes.

Who were the other “unknown principals” in Prospect Limited? Given the tight network of Bay Street oligarchs who controlled Nassau’s economy and worked hand-in-glove with colonial governors, we can infer they were drawn from the same small circle of white merchants who profited from every major transaction in the colony.

Colonial Government or Colonial Racket?

The 1937 Goodman’s Bay, Propect, Chapman’s and Andrew Deveaux Grant land grab exposes the fundamental lie of colonial governance: that it served the interests of the governed.

Governor Bede Clifford, with all his impressive titles and ceremonial authority, was not governing on behalf of Bahamians. He was facilitating wealth extraction by a narrow oligarchy that used colonial institutions to enrich themselves at public expense.

This is the history that gets sanitized in official accounts. This is the theft that gets dressed up as “development” or “investment.” This is the foundation upon which generational inequality in the Bahamas was built—not through market competition or entrepreneurial merit, but through colonial governors handing over public land to private companies controlled by their cronies.

You can’t make this stuff up. It’s all there in the land registry, in black and white, signed by a Knight Commander acting “on behalf of the Government” while serving the interests of robber barons.

Sources:

Conveyance dated 30th day of January 1937, Bahamas Registry X.13 pages 129-133