Harry Oakes - Moves To Bahamas

Moves To Bahamas

Oakes took British citizenship and for tax reasons lived in the Bahamas from 1935. He was invited to the British colony by Harold Christie, a prominent Bahamian real estate developer and legislator, who became a close business associate and friend. Oakes was created a baronet in 1939 as a reward for his philanthropic endeavours in the Bahamas, in Canada, and in Britain. For example, he donated $500,000 in two bequests to St. George's Hospital in London, England, and gave a million dollars to charities in the Bahamas. He became a member of the colony's House of Assembly.

Oakes soon proved to be a dynamic investor, entrepreneur and developer in the Bahamas. He had a major role in expanding the airport, Oakes Field, in the capital city Nassau, bought the British Colonial Hilton Nassau, built a golf course and country club, and developed farming and new housing. All this activity greatly stimulated the struggling economy in what had been a sleepy backwater, with only about 70,000 inhabitants in the early 1940s. This activity took place mainly on the principal island of New Providence; it was estimated that Oakes owned about one-third of that island by the early 1940s. Oakes had become the colony's wealthiest, most powerful, and most important resident by the early 1940s.