9 - The Best-Laid Plans

Summary

For the public of two continents the arrival of Henry Ford at Southampton on April 6, 1928, was a momentous occasion. The creator of the Model A was now ready to resume the leadership of the world automotive industry that had been his up to the death of the Model T. He took the honors of a Caesar modestly, even affably. Sixty-five years of age, with a keen blue eye and the color of health in his cheeks, he fenced in friendly fashion with the reporters who boarded his ship in the harbor. “The Model A,” he prophesied, “will last as long as the Model T.” The very heavens seemed to approve, for the English Easter season that year was clear, warm, and sunny.

Rumors had run across the Atlantic in advance of Ford's arrival. One proclaimed that he had come to Europe to establish a great automobile center. Mrs. Foster Welch, the woman mayor of Southampton, was on hand to urge the advantages of her city as the hub of Ford operations. Despite the announcement in 1924 that Dagenham would be the site of the new plant, nothing had been done about it, and the location of the great factory seemed to be again a matter of uncertainty. Mrs. Welch begged Ford to examine the land he already held in her city, and the potentialities of the port.