Following the death of his grandfather, Henry Ford II became president of Ford in 1945 [video]

On April 7, 1947, 30 years to the month after he set up his Irish company, Henry Ford died of a brain haemorrhage, aged 83, writes John Dolan.

He had been ill for some time at his home, Fair Lane, in Dearborn, Michigan, and the night he died, a power cut plunged the house into darkness. Henry thus died as he had been born on a Michigan farm in 1863 — by candlelight.

Four years earlier, Henry and his wife, Clara, had had to cope with the death of their only child, Edsel, from cancer, a few months short of his 50th birthday.