Worthy Park Estate is located in the geographical center of the island of Jamaica in St. Catherine Parrish, some thirty seven miles northwest of Kingston. In 1655 British Army Lt. Francis Price ( -1689) received a land grant of one hundred fifty acres in Guanaboa [1] Vale from the English Crown for his services to Oliver Cromwell during the Invasion of Jamaica in 1655. At first, cocoa was the main staple grown there but a disastrous plague damaged all the trees in 1670 forcing a switch to sugarcane. Michael Craton and James Walvin in their book The History of Worthy Park 1670-1970 state that by 1673 Francis Price’s plantation at Guanaboa was chiefly producing sugar, albeit only some twenty five hogsheads a year, from its mule driven mill and maybe fifteen hundred gallons of rum from its two stills.

On 13 March 1670 Lieutenant Price filed a patent [2] for eight hundred forty acres at Lluidas Vale on the west bank of the Lluidas River in St. John’s Parish called Worthy Park. He was the second patentee in the area and after several consolidation transactions, was the only estate to survive in the area. During the 1860s and 70s, much of Francis Price’s life and that of his three sons Francis (1675-1697), Thomas (1676-1705) and Charles (1678-1730) were dedicated to the accumulation of capital derived from the sugar plantation at Guanaboa and speculations in land at Lluidas Vale, more than doubling their holdings there during those years. Meanwhile, Worthy Park became the main residence of Francis Price and his wife Elizabeth Caxon ( -1694) and, while being gradually cleared, its land was dedicated to the production of beef and pork in order to pay for itself.

The early 1700s were prosperous times for Jamaica and for the Price family, then consisting only of Charles Price as his two brothers had died in their twenties. Despite inheritance issues that threatened division, ownership of Worthy Park Estate managed to remain within the family. Land ownership across the Price family and its marriage extensions followed the expanding and upward trend of sugar production and general prosperity in Jamaica. Population increased, the negro population probably doubled to about eighty thousand from 1700 to 1730 while the white population went from eight thousand in 1730 to twenty five thousand in 1787. Another factor contributing to the population increase was Britain’s Deficiency Laws which required a ratio of one white man to every thirty negroes on each estate.

During that period, sugar production in Jamaica surpassed other British colonies. The increase in the slave trade, the saturation of sugar in the windward colonies and increased attention paid to Jamaica by Britain bode well for the island. These positive trends would eventually benefit the Price family. The sugar and slave trades grew immensely in extent and sophistication during this period, and with the establishment of new systems of credit, commission and factorage, the first West Indian fortunes were created in England and in Jamaica as well. In addition to this, the Thirteen Colonies began to play an important role in West Indian trade, providing provisions and lumber in return for sugar. In 1700, Jamaica produced only half as much sugar as Barbados and the Leeward Islands but by 1730 it had equalled the production of Barbados and by 1740 exceeded the production of Barbados and the Leeward Islands combined. By 1763 Jamaica produced four times as much sugar as Barbados, and more than half the combined total for all British colonies.

Charles Price was who made Worthy Park into a sugar estate, but it was his son Sir Charles Price (1708-1772) who elevated it to new heights. Between 1738 and 1769, Sir Charles Price patented between no less than eight thousand seven hundred acres. He also bought up adjacent land cheaply whenever available and at the time of his death possessed some twenty six thousand acres, perhaps the largest extension of land ever owned by a single individual in Jamaica. Sir Charles Price was involved in politics as Member and Speaker of the Assembly, this allowed him to push through construction projects that benefited Lluidas Vale including the construction of an aqueduct from Murmuring Brook to Worthy Park, still in operation today.

The efficient administration of Sir Charles Price allowed his brotherJohn Price (1712-1740) to relocate to Cornwall for the benefit of his health, and his son John Price of Penzance (1738-1797) to live comfortably in England with the income received from Worthy Park. When Sir Charles Price died in 1772, his share of Worthy Park was inherited by his son Sir Charles Price II ( -1789) who survived him by only seventeen years. Sir Charles Price II had no descendants so upon his death in 1789, his share in Worthy Park was inherited by his cousin John Price of Penzance who at the time became an absentee owner. The family continued with sugar and rum production at Worthy Park, but the negative effect of poor indirect management or mismanagement and excessive expenses of its absentee owners, created a critical financial situation for the estate. The cure for these problems was a resident owner and manager coupled with a fresh infusion of capital.

This solution came in the person of Rose Price (1764-1834), the son of John Price of Penzance. Under Rose’s management, important measures were undertaken to cut cost, downsize and reorganize operations including more efficient cane planting operations, all geared to improve financial performance. Worthy Park then consisting of two thousand nine hundred twenty two acres, not only survived but achieved peak production in 1805 and 1812, in large part given to the retrenchment and reorganization undertaken by Rose Price between 1791 and 1795. With Rose Price at the helm, Worthy Park’s production from five hundred sixty four acres planted with sugarcane rose steadily from two hundred forty eight hogsheads of sugar and eighty five puncheons of rum in 1790 to three hundred seventy one hogsheads and one hundred sixty two puncheons in 1794, but even these figures represented a very poor yield per acre. In 1795, Rose Price assured himself of a much more reliable class of manager in his absence and returned to his absentee owner status in England. Production continued to increase, in 1797 it soared to four hundred sixty eight hogsheads of sugar, easily a record for the estate, surpassed in 1799 by four hundred ninety eight hogsheads, five hundred ninety 1800, six hundred twenty four in 1804, six hundred seventy three in 1805 and a production peak of seven hundred five in 1812.

The upward trend in production at Worthy Park was helped by two world happenings that disrupted in the global market and reduced competition for Jamaican sugar: the outbreak in 1793 of the War of the First Coalition and the beginning and end of the Haitian Revolution as a result of which France lost its most valuable sugar colony and the economy of the British sugar colonies won big. However, in order to sustain the growth, Rose Price had to borrow heavily mainly to increase Worthy Park’s negro slaves workforce. By 1796 Worthy Park had accumulated a £30,000 debt (roughly £2.1 million today) with Thomas Smith, their agent/distributor/factor based in London. In order to satisfy the debt, Worthy Park and its related holdings were placed in trust to Thomas Smith for ninety nine years and its entire sugar and rum production consigned to Smith as long as the debt was outstanding. This prevented Worthy Park to sell any sugar and rum locally which had previously been the case, especially with rum.

The British 1807 Slave Trade Act banned the buying and selling of slaves, but not slavery itself, this law hampered the ability to procure additional slave labor. Meanwhile, in 1798 Rose Price married Elizabeth Lambart (1779-1826), a genteel whose sister Frances was married to Charles Chetwynd-Talbot, 2nd Earl Talbot. With the help and backing of the Talbot’s, between the 1810s and 1830s Rose Price continued to acquire more property reaching some four thousand acres in total and installed new equipment at Worthy Park accumulating additional debt along the way. In the meantime beginning in 1825 the price of sugar began to plummet going from a high of 43s to 24s per hundredweight in 1832. This type of market correction made running Worthy Park untenable, insofar as revenue shrank and profitability was cut substantially.

Talks of emancipation began in 1832, while full emancipation of the enslaved would be legally recognized in 1838. Rose Price did not live to witness the change as he passed away on September 29, 1834 just eight weeks after the Emancipation Act came into force. Upon his death, his second youngest son George Price (1812–1890) took up the task of managing Worthy Park and spend the majority of his life in unprofitable Jamaica, struggling with the debts of the encumbered estate and the problems of an island once wealthy but now impoverished. In the 1840s Worthy Park was the second largest producer of sugar in Jamaica. George Price geared the family wealth into mechanizing their estate operations in view of the decrease in available cheap labor and for sure benefited from the failure of neighboring estates.

The Panic of 1847 coupled with the equalization of duties to remove preferential treatments, brought a catastrophic fall in sugar prices which, but for a brief recovery in 1857, continued to slide until 1866. Despite George Price’s efforts, Worthy Park fell beneath the weight of its debts to which had been added the investment in mechanization amounting to at least £30,000. ‍The inevitable happened and Worthy Park, then consisting of four thousand one hundred twenty two acres was first advertised for sale at auction in June 1862. In June 1863 Worthy Park was sold for £8,550 by George Price to Henry John Chetwynd-Talbot, 18th Earl of Shrewsbury and 18th Earl of Waterford (1803–1868). He purchased the estate through the Encumbered Estates Commission, title subsequently passing to his sons Reginald Arthur Talbot (1841–1929) and Walter Cecil Talbot (1834–1904) upon his death in 1868. The price received represented little more than an eighth of Worthy Park’s debts or a sixteenth of the value placed on the estate by Sir Rose Price in 1834. 

The Talbots were absentee owners and Worthy Park was not in or near their main interest, only one of them visited the estate briefly in 1875. During their tenure, crop diversification including cocoa, bananas and coffee was attempted as a kind of insurance but the bedrock of the plantation remained sugar. However, the fortunes of Worthy Park did not improve and in 1899 it was purchased for £8,200 by John Vassal Calder, a prominent Jamaican cattle farmer and landowner from Westmoreland Parrish who disillusioned with the struggles of sugar production, raised the cattle population at Worthy Park to eight hundred and emphasized the planting of cocoa and bananas. Calder faced significant challenges including labor issues, isolation, and declining health while running Worthy Park, so during the high price of sugar era known as the dance of the millions during WWI, in 1917 he circulated rumors that the estate was for sale aiming to retire during a wartime boom.

The family of Frederick Lister Clarke (1868-1932) had emigrated to Jamaica in 1846 and settled in Westmoreland Parrish. His father Henry founded the Westmoreland Building Society with the initial aim of providing loans to small farmers. Sometime around 1908 Fred Clarke had valued Worthy Park on behalf of the Westmoreland Building Society and was well aware of its potential worth and thought that at the £40,000 price which John Vassal Calder was said to be asking it was a good opportunity. So, in 1918 Fred Clarke purchased Worthy Park for £44,000 (over £2 million today) and Worthy Park has been owned by the Clarke family since since then, now being run by the family’s fourth generation. Fred Clarke’s able management resulted in an increase in the production of sugar which soared from Calder’s last crop in 1918 of two hundred five tons to five hundred ten tons in 1920, year that proved incredibly favorable for Fred and Worthy Park. It was the year it finally turned a profit after many years of continued losses.

Fred’s strategy shifted to producing sugar as cheaply as possible for as long as he could. Between 1926 and 1929, Fred decided to cease rum production he deemed unprofitable, however, rum production was resumed in 1930. Fred Clarke died in 1932 when ownership of Worthy Park passed on to his sons Clement Keal Clarke (1904-1967), Owen Mawbey Clarke (1908-2001) and George Frederick Clarke (1910-1997). As the oldest son and one of his father’s executors, Clement always remained the senior partner although Owen and then George assumed equal responsibilities. Their management resulted in the estate continuing to operate profitably, with steadily increased profits year after year.

Throughout the years they were able to survive labor unrest, substantial fluctuations in the price of sugar and adversities brought about by events like WWII. On the other hand, Worthy Park profited dramatically from the increased production that resulted from the Castro revolution in Cuba, the subsequent nationalization of the Cuban sugar industry and the the US embargo on Cuban exports that resulted in an increase in the world price for sugar to £93 per ton in 1963. Also contributing to the increase in Jamaican sugar production was the fact that the US began to admit non-quota allocations of Jamaican sugar that averaged ninety one tons a year between 1961 and 1965 at prices that averaged a highly lucrative £65 per ton. In 1965, Jamaica achieved an all-time record production of five hundred six thousand three hundred forty eight tons of sugar, more than five times the level of 1940.

Sugarcane has continually been grown at Worthy Park Estate since 1720 and uninterruptedly processed ever since until the present day. Sugar production at Worthy Park sugar mill for the 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 crop years was 26,100 m.t. and 24,300 m.t. respectively. With these production levels, Worthy Park is considered a small sugar mill, albeit the most efficient production wise in all of Jamaica since 1968, claim made in its website. The first records available of rum production at Worthy Park are from 1841 predating any other Jamaican distillery in operation today. In 1962 production of rum ceased under an agreement with the Spirits Pool Association of Jamaica due to overproduction of Jamaica rum. It was not until 2005 that rum production at Worthy Park resumed when a brand new distillery was built. The distillery was the brainchild of Fred’s great-grandson Gordon Clarke, who today is the Co-Managing Director of Worthy Park and the driving force behind the Rum Bar and Worthy Park rum brands.

An article published by Matt Pietrek at cocktailwonk.com gives a detailed look at the Worthy Park operation including its distillery.  The YouTube video below is a good visualization of Worthy park today.

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[1] Taino name which the Spaniards kept and applied to the land that later became St Catherine Parrish. It is the old name of St. John Parrish which in 1664 was one of the seven original parish established by the British. By 1867 St. John Parrish was merged into St Catherine Parrish to reduce the number of parishes in the island.

[2] To patent land meant receiving an official, legal land grant from the British Crown. Patents were used to incentivize the settlement of the island, encouraging settlers to bring servants and slaves to develop plantations. Recipients were expected to cultivate the land and build a small structure, or the land could be reclaimed by the Crown.