Ford’s nutty Brazilian city
QUESTION Why did Henry Ford build a town in Brazil’s Amazon rainforest?
Fordlandia is a relic of the time when the car manufacturer Henry Ford tried to create his own rubber plant to supply his Michigan factories.
in the Twenties, tyre rubber was supplied by British companies working in South East asia.
The area chosen for Ford’s rubber plantation was 6,000 square miles on the banks of the Tapajos river, a tributary of the amazon. it took 18 hours to reach by riverboat from the nearest town.
in 1927, Ford, the richest man in the world, built his city aiming to create equivalent working conditions to those found in his american plants. His workers built modern homes, a hospital, swimming pool and shops and set up a mess hall serving american food.
Workers were paid 35 cents an hour — ten cents more than workers at the South East asian rubber plants.
However, Ford’s attempts to impose U.S. ideals on his 400 Brazilian workers were misjudged. The food disagreed with them, as did the strict rules on relationships, women and alcohol. They also protested about being forced to attend square dances.
They complained about the housing, which was different from their traditional homes that were raised off the forest floor to keep out insects and animals.
The final nail in the coffin was the fact that the soil was unsuitable for growing rubber trees.
in 1934, Ford abandoned Fordlandia and moved operations to Belterra, eight miles away. This was a larger concern with 7,000 inhabitants and more than 2,000 workers.
its rubber plantation reached the production stage in 1941, but the village and plantation were abandoned in 1945 when the project proved unprofitable.
While Belterra survives as a thriving tourist town, Fordlandia has been left to decay slowly.
Jonathan Towey, Chelmsford, Essex.
QUESTION What is a spirit level level with?
WHEN a spirit level shows the bubble is central within the guide lines, it means the body of the level is sitting at right angles to an imaginary perpendicular line passing through the centre of the level to the centre of gravity within the Earth. Effectively, the level is aligned parallel with a tangent to the Earth’s sphere, passing through the point being levelled. levels set at different points on earth’s surface would trace out a curved line rather than a flat plane.
on the small scale typical for houses, the curvature of the Earth is insignificant. But for larger buildings, it must be taken into consideration.
This explains why the towers of bridges crossing rivers are slightly farther apart at the top than they are at ground level, despite each being perpendicular according to a spirit level.
A. R. Cater, Grays, Essex.
QUESTION What is the history of Nottingham Cottage at Kensington Palace before Prince Harry and Meghan moved in?
KENSINGTON Palace was built on the foundations of a Jacobean mansion called nottingham House, named after an early resident, Sir Heneage Finch, First Earl of nottingham.
Prince Harry and Meghan’s home, nottingham Cottage, is the only building in the palace complex that has retained the name.
The original house was built between 1605 and 1620 by businessman george Coppin. at that time, Kensington village was a cluster of houses, gardens and orchards centred on the church of St Mary abbots.
Coppin, who was in the inner circle at the court of James i, fell from favour in 1619 and his house came into the hands of the Finch family. The lawyer Sir Heneage Finch made several improvements. in 1681, when Finch was made Earl of nottingham, his mansion became known as nottingham House.
in 1689, shortly after ascending the throne, William iii and Queen Mary took a fancy to this grand house and bought it for £20,000 (£4 million today).
Whitehall Palace, the main london home of the British monarch since 1530, was deemed to be too near the river Thames, with its fog and floods, for William’s fragile health.
They hired Sir Christopher Wren to expand nottingham House into a palace and the royal court moved there.
in the 1720s, the original building was replaced to form the core of the magnificent King’s state apartments.
The name lives on in nottingham Cottage. it was also designed by Wren, and is one of the smallest properties on the estate, with two bedrooms, a living room, kitchen and bathroom and a walled garden. it was built to house royal retainers, including Marion Crawford, the Queen’s Scottish nanny.
William and Kate lived in the home they affectionately called ‘nott Cott’ while their palace apartment was refurbished.
Harry moved out of his apartment in Clarence House in 2012 and into nottingham Cottage. it was in the kitchen that he got down on one knee and proposed to Meghan Markle while the couple cooked dinner.
Following their marriage, the duke and duchess of Sussex will continue living in nottingham Cottage.
Joanna Finch, Houghton, Hants.
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