How Neville Goddards Family Built Their Fortune Rags To Riches Rum And Reinvention

11 Sep How Neville Goddard’s Family Built Their Fortune: Rags to Riches, Rum, and Reinvention

When Neville Goddard recalled bringing his teacher Abdullah “two lovely bottles of brandy, and some rum” from his father’s business in Barbados, he was speaking from a family history rooted in rum, retail, and reinvention. The Goddards rose from poor “Redlegs”* in St. John parish to become one of the Caribbean’s largest business dynasties. A rags-to-riches story woven through bottles of rum, butcher shops, and bold ventures that eventually grew into the multinational Goddard Enterprises Limited. *(poor whites or servants, name came from their sunburned skin (since they often worked barefoot and exposed in the fields) leaving their legs red)

And I learned so many things from the old fellow. I came back, because I wasn’t drinking– I brought him two lovely old bottles of brandy. The best that we have on the island… two lovely bottles, and some rum. So I gave him my father’s rum, gave him the brandy.

A week later, he said to me, “Say… how long do you expect those things to last?” (audience laughter)

I learned my lesson. I thought he would sip those things for a year– oh, no! They were gone! And he wondered how long I supposed these things to last for him.

And of course he really disillusioned me terribly on so many things because I would go and dine with him, and Abdullah… I was then a strict vegetarian. I was trying to overcome it, after I came back… gradually. And of course he would sit down and he would have two or three big shots of rye–I mean, big shots of rye– and then he would wash down his meal with a lot of Porter, or… it wasn’t beer, it was ale… and then he would at the end, like Churchill, a huge big bowl of ice cream.

I said, “Ab, how can you do that?”

“Oh,” he said, “you couldn’t do it… it would poison you, because you have quibbles.” (audience laughter) “But you know that God made everything? Everything is God. You would assume that he made something and not the rest? No, God made everything.” And he’ll send me back to the Bible. “Go back to the Bible and read the book of Acts.”

“And Peter couldn’t eat the unclean thing. And then the Lord said, ‘Slay and eat, for that which I have cleansed, I have cleansed.’” Then a sheet (?) came down filled with all manner of animals and food. And the voice said to Peter, “Slay and eat, for that which I have cleansed, I have cleansed.”

So he said, “You have quibbles, Neville. With any of your quibbles, it’d poison you.”

But he would sit down and polish off this enormous meal, and wash it down with ale, preceded with three shots of rye. And here was a man truly of the spirit. How We Got Together

The Goddard Family and Rum

The Goddard family of Barbados “Neville Goddard’s family” were involved in many business ventures, including the production and distribution of rum. This was typical for Caribbean islands, where rum has long been central to local culture, both for residents and for export.

One notable brand was Goddard’s Gold Braid Rum, produced under the company name Goddard & Sons, led by Neville’s father Joseph Nathaniel Goddard (Joe) and his brother Victor. Some bottles even carried Joseph’s name on the label. Neville himself once mentioned in a lecture that he brought “his father’s rum” to Abdullah.

Origins of Goddard Enterprises

- 1921 – Joseph Nathaniel Goddard and his son Victor opened a grocery and butcher shop in Bridgetown, Barbados.

- 1924 – They purchased the Ice House Building on Broad Street, expanding into refrigerated meat sales—the first of its kind in Bridgetown. Neville later told the story of how, though they didn’t have enough money, circumstances “mysteriously” aligned so they could acquire the building, which they later sold at a huge profit.

- 1930s–40s – The family business diversified: bakeries, department stores, hotels, and eventually airline catering.

- 1960s onward – They expanded further into supermarkets, with acquisitions like Rendezvous (1964).

Growth into a Multinational