by Patricia Beardsley Roker

In the Malcolm family of The Bahamas, legend has it that the first Malcolm migrated from Scotlandwell, Kinross-shire, in 1783 because he believed the traditional clan suit used for laying out dead members of the family was infested with tuberculosis and responsible for the steady deaths of his family.

Whatever the reason, 29-nine-year-old Michael Malcolm, the son of a Presbyterian clergyman, went to Glasgow and "filled his pockets with grain and water" and got on a ship bound for Barbados before the funeral suit did him in as well.

The Atlantic crossing proved to be a very rough one and this non-sailor decided to get off the ship at its first port of call: Nassau. Michael Malcolm, a wheelwright by profession, soon found he could make a living in the colony that was beginning to explode with its newly-arrived Loyalist refugees. Because of his father's profession, as a child Malcolm had been taught to read and write and this skill assisted him greatly as he became a prominent member of the Bahamian community. He was granted land by King George III at what is now Malcolm Creek and was first elected to the House of Assembly in 1805, a post he held for the next quarter of a century.

Michael Malcolm was a co-founder of the St. Andrews Society and in 1805 he petitioned the Church of Scotland in Edinburgh to be allowed to set up a church in Nassau for the local Scots because they were forced to worship in the "English church" and wanted one of their own. As a result of his efforts, St. Andrew's Presbyterian Kirk was established and Michael Malcolm became known forever as the "Father of the Kirk" where a pew still bears the name "Malcolm."

Before his death in 1823, he journeyed back to Scotland three times, apparently taking with him two huge conch shells as souvenirs of The Bahamas. These treasured mementos were found by one of his modern day descendants, Bahamian businessman, Malcolm McKay, in the family cemetery in Scotland. McKay also found that Bahamian conch shells had been carved into the monuments of Michael Malcolm's parents in that cold Scottish graveyard.

In his early days, John Malcolm, Michael's grandson, was an Assistant Paymaster in the Royal Navy, going on to become Postmaster at Belize. His son, Ormond Drimmie Malcolm, was born in 1839 and became a lawyer, climbing the ranks to become Attorney General, Chief Justice and the Speaker of the House of Assembly. Ormond Malcolm, one of the first Bahamians to be knighted, also was a leader in the tumultuous fight for the disestablishment and disendowment of the Anglican Church in the colony, a move that is seen by some as the first step on the long road to Bahamian independence.

In 1891, Sir Ormond, known as the "First Gentleman of the Colony," was Attorney General when his 16-year-old son, Harcourt Malcolm, began to read law with him. Five years later, Harcourt went to London to read for the English Bar at Lincoln's Inn and was called in June 1899, after which he returned to The Bahamas and was called to the Bahamian Bar in July.

In a bye-election on Feb. 27, 1900, Harcourt Malcolm was returned as one of the representatives for Eleuthera, Sir Ormond's old constituency. As a Member of the House, Harcourt Malcolm began to enquire into the contents of the Library of the House and soon discovered that there were no records of minutes of the Bahamian House prior to 1760, a lack he was determined to remedy. Before long, his research in England had unearthed copies of minutes all the way back to the very first meeting of the House in 1729 and he formally presented these to the House and the Legislative Council, completing the libraries' records.

In February 1901, Harcourt Malcolm was elected to the newly-created office of Deputy Speaker of the House and, by 1904, he had compiled a Manual of Procedure of the House, an invaluable aid to all House Members. During this time, he was also acting as Attorney General for long periods, was made a King's Council for the Bahama Islands in 1910 and was appointed to act as Chief Justice for a short time in 1913. On Feb. 4, 1914, Harcourt Malcolm was elected Speaker of the House, a post that he held until his death in 1936, making nearly a half-century that the Speaker's chair had been occupied by Malcolms, father and son.

Aside from his contribution to The Bahamas as Speaker and, upon occasion, Chief Justice, Harcourt Malcolm also wrote "The History of the Bahamas House of Assembly," which was published in 1921, amassed a collection of all the available historical documents pertaining to the Bahamas and wrote a Memorandum on the Forts of New Providence. He was also responsible for tracing the origin of the Mace that was used in the House and for assembling the collection of Speaker's portraits that still hang in the House.

His most monumental task, however, was the compilation and revision of the Statute Laws of the Bahamas up to 1929, published in two volumes in 1932, a prodigious job that was supposed to be shared with Chief Justice Sir Daniel Tudor, but which Malcolm completed on his own following Sir Daniel's death.

A close cousin of Harcourt Malcolm, Kirkwood Graham Malcolm, was the highest paid civil servant of the day, earning a pound per week as trash collector for the City of Nassau and using that trash to fill in the swampy area that became known as Malcolm Park. A polo player, Kirkwood Malcolm had two children: Margaret Cameron Malcolm, who worked in Customs and was very active in the Kirk, and Alfred Bruce – AB – Malcolm.

Kirkwood Malcolm was a frequently brutal father who imposed corporal punishment on AB almost daily for what he saw as AB's shortcomings in education. AB Malcolm finally escaped at 16 by joining the Army and going to fight in World War I. He only got as far as Ireland where he was felled by dysentery and spent the last days of the War in a hospital. He then ran off to Hialeah, Florida where he worked at menial jobs until 1922 when he came home and put two gas pumps in front of his cousin's dry goods store. When he inherited the store in 1926, he got a loan from the Royal Bank of Canada and built a state of the art garage, similar to one found in metropolitan areas like New York. Malcolm's Garage was born.

When AB saw that war was looming in Europe, he set about buying some more property for storage space in Nassau. He then went to the States and, in spite of the laughter of other Bahamian business people, set about buying as many secondhand retread tyres as he could get his hands on and shipping them to his storage in Nassau. The laughter was stilled when war broke out, rubber was rationed and AB Malcolm was the only person in the British Empire in this hemisphere to have tyres to sell to the military and the local market. It was one of his most successful speculative ventures.

AB Malcolm was also an avid polo player and a jockey at Hobby Horse Race Track. However, his career as a jockey ended abruptly in March 1947 when the bookmakers, seeing only that he was a short, fat man who had to keep his jodhpurs wet in order to stay on the horse, made him a longshot to win when he was riding Lady Oakes' "Smokey" in a big race. However, so many average Bahamians bet on this unlikely jockey that day that, when he won, Hobby Horse Race Track had to pay off at such high odds they almost went broke. Consequently, AB Malcolm was asked never to race again. Many Bahamian families won considerable money that day, including the father of the late Archdeacon William Thompson, who confided years later to AB's grandson, Malcolm McKay, that their winnings were enough to be able to put a downpayment on a piece of property.

The other side of AB Malcolm was his enduring and profound love of Junkanoo. He rushed from 1910 to 1980 and was one of the earliest sponsors of the Valley Boys. He headed up the Junkanoo Committee from the 1940's to the early 1960's, working to keep Junkanoo alive when its survival was very much in doubt in the post-World War II years. AB Malcolm successfully organized, funded and led by example as a prominent white Bay Street merchant to keep the parade going and to pave the way for the modern Junkanoo.

Clan Malcolm has played an intricate part in the history of The Bahamas for over two centuries. From hard-working Scottish refugee to Speakers of the House to Chief Justices to successful businesspeople to Junkanooers, this family's devotion to building The Bahamas is evident generation after generation.

Caption: Harcourt Malcom

Posted: Monday February 9, 2004