PenDragon - the official magazine of Lyford Cay International School PenDragon Vol 3, Spring 2017 | Page 8
CHAPTER 1: A HUMBLE BEGINNING
THE HISTORY OF LYFORD CAY INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL
By Eric Wiberg (1975-79)
Lyford Cay International School
(LCIS) can trace its origins to one
man’s fall from his horse. Early in
1954, the Canadian businessman,
horse breeder and visionary
Edward Plunket “EP” Taylor was
riding his grey mare on the family
estate named Windfields when
the horse bucked, throwing Taylor
onto the road and sending him
to Toronto General Hospital for
a month and a half. According to
his biographer, Richard Rohmer,
“It was during this recuperative
period, with little to do, that he
took a long, hard look at his own
future and at the potential of Lyford
Cay…‘I went there for reasons of
my happiness and my health, and
to make a contribution.’”
Shortly after getting out of hospital,
Taylor and his wife Winnie returned
to The Bahamas to stay with their
friends the Allan Millers at Lyford
Cay. He made an offer to Bahamian
realtor Sir Harold Christie to buy
all of the available land at Lyford
Cay, which was still mostly swamp
and mangrove. Musing on the
reasons for the move, Taylor later
said, “I’ve always found it difficult
to refrain from embarking on a
business venture which appears
to be constructive, which would fill
a need...Lyford Cay afforded the
opportunity to lay out a perfectly
planned community that would
stand out for generations as a
pleasant place in which to live.”
The total land that EP Taylor
purchased was about 2,800
acres. His accountant Don Prowse
described Taylor viewing the
property from a hill: “All I could
see down there was mango
[mangrove] swamp. He’d say,
‘We’ll put the golf course over
there, the beach club will go there,
and we’ll have the first residential
development over there.’ He could
see it. The place was transformed
by his vision because he could see
what most of us can’t see. That’s
the nature of the man.”
Of course Taylor was not the first
pioneer to visit The Bahamas –
the Lucayans and Taino tribes
first arrived around 700 AD, and
Columbus landed in 1492. In 1648,
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William Sayle led the Eleutheran
Adventurers to Eleuthera, and
then in September 1785 Captain
William Lyford Jr was granted 448
acres in what is now Lyford Cay for
his service to the Loyalist cause as
a ship’s pilot in Savannah and St
Augustine.
The origins of Lyford Cay School
lay with EP Taylor’s formation
of the Lyford Cay Development
Company in 1954, with the intention
to carve one of the first and most
exclusive international residential
and seasonal communities. The
area was to be gated in and include
a golf course, marina, main club
house with hotel-style rooms, club
pool and beach, fire station, post
office, roads, and so on. Taylor
did not want to sell lots until the
development was substantially
complete; the golf course opened
in 1958 and the marina opened in
1961. The main club opened at the
end of 1959, and, by then, the club
could boast 500 members. Almost
all of the funding came from Taylor
himself, and, until 1973, he owned
roughly three quarters of the
shares.
staff of the club could receive an
education for free, subsidised by
their parents’ employer. In the
words of Frances Millar, the wife
of Tom Millar, first Headmaster,
“We started with nine pupils and
one building consisting of two
rooms, toilet facilities and a small
staff room.” Mrs Millar described it
as an “idyllic situation” that could
“not last long.” In the vernacular of
the time her initial title was “Infant
Mistress.” She was a teacher who
maintained “strict discipline [and]
produced excellent results in a
happy atmosphere,” according to
an early yearbook.
The Millars brought their daughters,
Lesley and Gillian, with them to The
Bahamas. Their daughters have
said that the family was living on
the little island of Cumbrae on the
west coast of Scotland when John
Chaplin came from The Bahamas,
where he was headmaster of St
Andrew’s School, to interview their
Lyford Cay School, now known as
Lyford Cay International School,
had humble beginnings in 1962
as a place where children of the
father for the head role at Lyford
Cay School. Mr Millar accepted
the job and they soon found
themselves
wearing
woollen
Scottish kilts in the tropical heat
of Nassau.
In an interview, the women
described their father as the “get
up and go, joiner-in, do-this and
do-that” type. He had a huge
amount of charity: “Lyford Cay
School was his life’s passion,
definitely,” said his daughters.
In 1966, a schoolhouse was built.
The following year, the fourth
teacher joined the school, and
construction of a second school
house began.
The early 1970s were a time
of upheaval then growth and
stabilisation for the school. Tom
Millar died unexpectedly of a heart
attack on 12 June 1971. As Mrs Millar
wrote in the school’s first yearbook,
“Such kindness and friendship
were extended to me at that time.
The School, or rather the children,
gave me the will to continue.” Her
daughters observed that Mr Millar’s
death “completely shook her to the
core, but she stayed on to give her
due.”
These early, at times difficult, years
set the stage for Lyford Cay School’s
tremendous development into
what is now a leading educational
institution in the Caribbean region.
The school’s perseverance has
been the result of both passionate
leadership over the years, as well
as a thoughtful community that
has grown alongside the school.
Today, Lyford Cay International
School and the vibrant community
of Lyford Cay stand as testaments
of EP Taylor’s extraordinary vision
all those years ago.
This excerpt is taken from Chapter 1 of the forthcoming book, The History of Lyford Cay International School, which
chronicles the beginnings of the Lyford Cay community and the school which calls this community home, both of which
were founded by Canadian entrepreneur Edward Plunket “EP” Taylor.
The History of Lyford Cay International School is being written by Eric Wiberg (1975-79). Anyone interested in contributing
memories or stories relating to the school over the years may contact Eric at [email protected].
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