64-584: The British Central Africa Company Ltd was one of the four largest European-owned companies that operated in colonial Nyasaland , now Malawi . The company was incorporated in 1902 to acquire the business interests that Eugene Sharrer , an early settler and entrepreneur , had developed in the British Central Africa Protectorate . Sharrer became the majority shareholder of the company on its foundation. The company initially had trading and transport interests, but these were sold by
128-508: A 3,500 acre tea plantation, two tea factories and some other small estates. The British Central Africa Company Ltd was the second-largest of four estate-owning companies in colonial Nyasaland which together owned over 3.4 million acres of land, including the majority of the fertile land in the Shire Highlands . Eugene Sharrer had been the owner of three large and two smaller estates, all largely undeveloped when he transferred them to
192-416: A certain landowner might have been said to own 32,000 acres of land, not 50 square miles of land. The acre is related to the square mile, with 640 acres making up one square mile. One mile is 5280 feet (1760 yards). In western Canada and the western United States, divisions of land area were typically based on the square mile, and fractions thereof. If the square mile is divided into quarters, each quarter has
256-492: A drastic fall in prices for flue-cured tobacco after 1927, but then took up whatever employment they could find. After 1927, the production of dark-fired tobacco by African farmers, either estate tenants or on Crown lands , overtook that of flue-cured tobacco, and the British Central Africa Company, which already had a scheme for its tenants to grow tobacco under supervision, became mostly a broker for
320-774: A few it continues as a statute measure . These include Antigua and Barbuda, American Samoa , The Bahamas , Belize, the British Virgin Islands , Canada , the Cayman Islands , Dominica , the Falkland Islands , Grenada , Ghana , Guam , the Northern Mariana Islands , Jamaica , Montserrat , Samoa , Saint Lucia , St. Helena , St. Kitts and Nevis , St. Vincent and the Grenadines , Turks and Caicos ,
384-455: A financial deficit. Its local General Manager tried to make good the loss of income by increasing tenants’ rents. Until 1952, the maximum rent permitted by the 1928 Natives on Private Estates Ordinance was 20 shillings or £1 but in that year the 1952 Africans on Private Estates Ordinance proposed an increase in the maximum to 52 shillings and sixpence (£2.625) from July 1953. Although most other estate companies agreed not to charge this maximum,
448-569: A primary unit for trade in the United Kingdom ceased to be permitted from 1 October 1995, due to the 1994 amendment of the Weights and Measures Act , where it was replaced by the hectare – though its use as a supplementary unit continues to be permitted indefinitely. This was with the exemption of Land registration , which records the sale and possession of land, in 2010 HM Land Registry ended its exemption. The measure
512-474: A side length of 1 ⁄ 2 mile (880 yards) and is 1 ⁄ 4 square mile in area, or 160 acres. These subunits are typically then again divided into quarters, with each side being 1 ⁄ 4 mile long, and being 1 ⁄ 16 of a square mile in area, or 40 acres. In the United States, farmland was typically divided as such, and the phrase "the back 40" refers to the 40-acre parcel to
576-462: A side. As a unit of measure, an acre has no prescribed shape; any area of 43,560 square feet is an acre. In the international yard and pound agreement of 1959, the United States and five countries of the Commonwealth of Nations defined the international yard to be exactly 0.9144 metre. The US authorities decided that, while the refined definition would apply nationally in all other respects,
640-573: A yard are used (see survey foot and survey yard ), so the exact size of an acre depends upon the yard upon which it is based. The US survey acre is about 4,046.872 square metres; its exact value ( 4046 + 13,525,426 / 15,499,969 m ) is based on an inch defined by 1 metre = 39.37 inches exactly, as established by the Mendenhall Order of 1893. Surveyors in the United States use both international and survey feet, and consequently, both varieties of acre. Since
704-632: Is a unit of land area used in the British imperial and the United States customary systems. It is traditionally defined as the area of one chain by one furlong (66 by 660 feet ), which is exactly equal to 10 square chains, 1 ⁄ 640 of a square mile, 4,840 square yards, or 43,560 square feet, and approximately 4,047 m , or about 40% of a hectare . Based upon the international yard and pound agreement of 1959 , an acre may be declared as exactly 4,046.8564224 square metres . The acre
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#1732783552010768-684: Is derived from the Norman , attested for the first time in a text of Fécamp in 1006 to the meaning of «agrarian measure». Acre dates back to the old Scandinavian akr “cultivated field, ploughed land” which is perpetuated in Icelandic and the Faroese akur “field (wheat)”, Norwegian and Swedish åker , Danish ager “field”, cognate with German Acker , Dutch akker , Latin ager , Sanskrit ajr , and Greek αγρός ( agros ). In English, an obsolete variant spelling
832-415: Is measured in acres. In Sri Lanka , the division of an acre into 160 perches or 4 roods is common. In Pakistan, residential plots are measured in kanal (20 marla = 1 kanal = 605 sq yards) and open/agriculture land measurement is in acres (8 kanal = 1 acre) and muraba (25 acres = 1 muraba = 200 kanal ), jerib , wiswa and gunta . Its use as
896-418: Is not used for land registration . One acre equals 1 ⁄ 640 (0.0015625) square mile, 4,840 square yards, 43,560 square feet, or about 4,047 square metres (0.4047 hectares ) (see below). While all modern variants of the acre contain 4,840 square yards, there are alternative definitions of a yard, so the exact size of an acre depends upon the particular yard on which it is based. Originally, an acre
960-555: Is sometimes abbreviated ac but is usually spelled out as the word "acre". Traditionally, in the Middle Ages , an acre was conceived of as the area of land that could be ploughed by one man using a team of eight oxen in one day. The acre is still a statutory measure in the United States. Both the international acre and the US survey acre are in use, but they differ by only four parts per million (see below). The most common use of
1024-494: Is still used to communicate with the public and informally (non-contract) by the farming and property industries. 1 international acre is equal to the following metric units: 1 United States survey acre is equal to: 1 acre (both variants) is equal to the following customary units: Perhaps the easiest way for US residents to envision an acre is as a rectangle measuring 88 yards by 55 yards ( 1 ⁄ 10 of 880 yards by 1 ⁄ 16 of 880 yards), about 9 ⁄ 10
1088-539: The National Institute of Standards and Technology announced their joint intent to end the "temporary" continuance of the US survey foot, mile, and acre units (as permitted by their 1959 decision, above), with effect from the end of 2022. The Puerto Rican cuerda (0.39 ha; 0.97 acres) is sometimes called the "Spanish acre" in the continental United States. The acre is commonly used in many current and former Commonwealth countries by custom, and in
1152-499: The US survey foot (and thus the survey acre) would continue 'until such a time as it becomes desirable and expedient to readjust [it]'. By inference, an "international acre" may be calculated as exactly 4,046.856 422 4 square metres but it does not have a basis in any international agreement. Both the international acre and the US survey acre contain 1 ⁄ 640 of a square mile or 4,840 square yards, but alternative definitions of
1216-633: The 1930s. For most of the colonial period, its extensive estates produced cotton , tobacco or tea but the British Central Africa Company Ltd developed the reputation of being a harsh and exploitative landlord whose relations with its tenants were poor. In 1962, shortly before independence, the company sold most of its undeveloped land to the Nyasaland government, but it retained some plantations and two tea factories. It changed its name to The Central Africa Company Ltd and
1280-574: The Balkans, Norway , and Denmark , where it was equal to about two-thirds acre (2,700 m ). Statutory values for the acre were enacted in England, and subsequently the United Kingdom, by acts of: Historically, the size of farms and landed estates in the United Kingdom was usually expressed in acres (or acres, roods , and perches ), even if the number of acres was so large that it might conveniently have been expressed in square miles. For example,
1344-423: The British Central Africa Company demanded the 52 shillings and sixpence maximum from December 1952. A number of tenants resisted the increase, and the company issued eviction notices, which the government was legally obliged to enforce, but was reluctant to do. In June 1953, the company agreed not to enforce either the evictions or the rent increase. However, its tenants had begun to clear land on undeveloped parts of
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#17327835520101408-501: The British Central Africa Company had 14 barns for flue-curing tobacco, out of a total of 119 such barns in the protectorate. At the end of the First World War, the company started a scheme for settling ex-servicemen on its undeveloped land as tobacco growers. About 50 men took up farms, usually of 1,000 acres. Many failed in the period from 1920 to 1924, as none had a farming background or any farming training. Some survived until
1472-490: The Governor of Nyasaland from 1948 to 1956, attempted to get the major estate companies to sell the under-used parts of their land to the government for resettlement. However, Colby made it clear he would not use the compulsory purchase powers he had been granted, preferring voluntary agreement. By ruling compulsion out, he gave unintended encouragement to the British Central Africa Company's plans to retain its estates. In 1955,
1536-475: The Nyasaland government agreed to purchase almost 36,470 acres in Cholo District with 24,600 residents from the British Central Africa Company for resettlement. Before this, the company had owned 74,262 acres with 36,400 residents. The company retained 38,143 acres, but of the 11,800 residents, 3,240 were moved onto Crown lands . However, it was only in 1962, when independence was clearly in prospect, that
1600-756: The Paris arpent used in Quebec before the metric system was adopted is sometimes called "French acre" in English, even though the Paris arpent and the Normandy acre were two very different units of area in ancient France (the Paris arpent became the unit of area of French Canada, whereas the Normandy acre was never used in French Canada). In Germany, the Netherlands, and Eastern Europe
1664-501: The Sharrer's Zambezi Traffic Company Ltd. These rivers formed the main route into British Central Africa, and to improve transport links, he promoted the development of the first railway in the country, whose construction was agreed in 1902. Shortly after this, he left Africa permanently for London, although he retained his financial interests there. The British Central Africa Company Ltd took over Sharrer's Kubula Stores Ltd in 1902. This
1728-469: The Shire Highlands. Its estate at Cholo was originally its largest one, of over 150,000 acres, but by 1920 around 20,000 acres had been sold or leased. Around 6,000 acres of the 28,000 acre Kubula estate, northwest of the centre of Blantyre had also been sold or leased, but it was overpopulated, with 5,713 registered tenants on 1929 and 4,500 in 1939, most of whom were heads of families. By 1924,
1792-715: The Trans-Zambezia Railway Ltd completed its line from the south bank of the Zambezi to Beira in 1922, that company took over the British Central Africa Company's remaining river fleet for use as cross-river ferries. The British Central Africa Company Ltd was a major shareholder in the Shire Highlands Railway Company and the Central Africa Railway Ltd. In 1930, Nyasaland Railways Ltd was formed to acquire
1856-621: The United Kingdom, the United States and the US Virgin Islands . In the Republic of Ireland , the hectare is legally used under European units of measurement directives ; however, the acre (the same standard statute as used in the UK, not the old Irish acre , which was of a different size) is still widely used, especially in agriculture. In India, residential plots are measured in square feet or square metre, while agricultural land
1920-668: The Upper Shire District, by distributing cheap Egyptian cotton seed. The company gave instruction on the method of cultivation and agreed to buy the future crop at a guaranteed (but low) price. There was no significant shortage of land for peasant farming in the Upper Shire Valley, as the British Central Africa Company only exploited a small proportion of its land and, until the 1930s, the company tolerated squatters who did not pay rent on its land. Its tenants had to perform labour thangata or grow cotton for sale to
1984-474: The acre is to measure tracts of land. The acre is used in many established and former Commonwealth of Nations countries by custom. In a few, it continues as a statute measure , although not since 2010 in the UK, and not for decades in Australia , New Zealand , and South Africa . In many places where it is not a statute measure, it is still lawful to "use for trade" if given as supplementary information and
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2048-573: The business of the Shire Highlands Railway Ltd and the share capital of the Central Africa Railway Ltd. This left the British Central Africa Company as a significant shareholder in Nyasaland Railways Ltd. The company, whose name was now The Central Africa Company, became a subsidiary of Lonrho (Malawi) Ltd in 1964 Lonrho bought The Central Africa Company Ltd mainly because of its railway shares, but also acquired
2112-534: The colonial period was the system of thangata which, in the early colonial period, meant that African on estates had to perform agricultural labour in lieu of the rent for a plot of land on which they could grow food. At first, estates usually required two months’ labour a year from adult men, one month for their rent, the second in reimbursement of the Hut tax paid by the landowner on behalf of tenants. Widows and other single women who were tenants were usually exempted from
2176-548: The company accepted the need to sell its surplus land, retaining only its most profitable assets. At the time of its takeover by Lonrho (Malawi) Ltd in 1964, the Central Africa Company Ltd owned a 3,500 acre tea plantation, two tea factories and some other small estates. The Central Africa Company Ltd, with its remaining agricultural assets, was sold by Lonrho to African Plantations Corporation June 1997. The basis of estate agriculture in Nyasaland for much of
2240-706: The company had sold or leased almost 77,000 acres of its original 372,500 acres. Of the 295,500 acres the British Central Africa Company Ltd held directly in that year, it actively farmed only 6,000 acres itself, the remainder was cultivated by tenants or fallow . Until the mid-1930s, the British Central Africa Company Ltd was relatively relaxed about collecting rents from its tenants, but as the Natives on Private Estates Ordinance 1928 allowed estate owners to evict 10% of their tenants without cause in 1933 and every five years thereafter, it began to evict significant numbers its of tenants. The company Ltd exercised its right to expel
2304-539: The company still retained a 3,500 acre tea plantation and two tea factories. Nyasaland Too Many Requests If you report this error to the Wikimedia System Administrators, please include the details below. Request from 172.68.168.236 via cp1112 cp1112, Varnish XID 941980776 Upstream caches: cp1112 int Error: 429, Too Many Requests at Thu, 28 Nov 2024 08:45:52 GMT Acre The acre ( / ˈ eɪ k ər / AY -kər )
2368-671: The company were at the Kabula Stores Ltd offices and warehouses on Kabula Hill, part of one of Eugene Sharrer's estates. The company moved from Kabula to Limbe around the time of the opening of the Shire Highlands Railway to Limbe. The company's base is still in Limbe and the company is still in existence. Lonrho sold the Central Africa Company Ltd to African Plantations Corporation in June 1997. Eugene Sharrer, who
2432-610: The company's estates and start cultivation. Many local people refused to pay taxes or attend courts, and riots broke out in Cholo in August 1953, leading to eleven dead and seventy-two injured. Following these riots, Governor Colby urged that another 300,000 acres, including much British Central Africa Company land, should be acquired through voluntary purchase, but the Colonial Office did not support this, so little happened. In 1963,
2496-420: The company, but in general there was plenty of land available for food production. The efforts of the colonial administration to introduce cotton as a peasant cash-crop were largely unsuccessful, as the prices paid to the peasants were low, so they concentrated on growing food. The British Central Africa Company Ltd also had a cotton ginnery for processing its own and smallholder cotton until at least 1961. In 1971,
2560-670: The company. These included land in the Shire Highlands, but also in the Shire valley. The British Central Africa Company Ltd acquired 372,500 acres from Sharrer in 1902. Its two most productive estates were in the Shire valley: Kupimbi of around 68,000 acres in the Middle Shire, which grew tobacco, and Chelumbo of about 132,000 acres in the Upper Shire, which grew cotton. A third Shire valley estate of about 17,000 acres near Chikwawa also grew cotton. The company also owned two estates in
2624-497: The difference between the US survey acre and international acre (0.016 square metres, 160 square centimetres or 24.8 square inches), is only about a quarter of the size of an A4 sheet or US letter , it is usually not important which one is being discussed. Areas are seldom measured with sufficient accuracy for the different definitions to be detectable. In October 2019, the US National Geodetic Survey and
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2688-486: The farmers (still in the 20th century) made the difference between the grande acre (68 ares, 66 centiares) and the petite acre (56 to 65 ca). The Normandy acre was usually divided in 4 vergées ( roods ) and 160 square perches , like the English acre. The Normandy acre was equal to 1.6 arpents , the unit of area more commonly used in Northern France outside of Normandy. In Canada,
2752-440: The full 10% from its Cholo estates in 1933, the only estate owner in the protectorate to do so. By 1947, some of the earlier leases had ended, and the company directly held 329,000 acres and it actively farmed 29,000 of them. In 1948 the government set up a Land Planning Committee, whose first report recommended that government should re-acquire land which was either undeveloped or occupied by large numbers of Africans. This included
2816-426: The opening of the Shire Highlands Railway to Port Herald downriver of Chiromo in 1908. Port Herald then became the new terminus for river services. The Central Africa Railway Ltd was opened from Port Herald to Chindio on the north bank of the Zambezi in 1914, after which the British Central Africa Company ran its service from Chinde to Port Herald in the wet season, but only to Chindio when water levels were low. When
2880-418: The projected re-purchase of about two-thirds of the British Central Africa Company's freehold land. The company had long fought to retain its landholdings, much of which was undeveloped, claiming that soil exhaustion and erosion, deforestation and poor husbandry would result if the land were resettled by smallholders . In 1948, the company was still unwilling to sell its better land to the government. However, it
2944-413: The purchase and processing of smallholder cotton was taken over by a parastatal body. In 1902, Sharrer's landholdings in Cholo district were sold to the British Central Africa Company Ltd. For the first two decades of the 20th century, the area remained undeveloped and relatively under-populated. Small amounts of cotton, sisal and tobacco were grown but the tobacco was hit by disease, the value of sisal
3008-437: The rental obligation and did not pay hut tax. However, on some estates the obligations of labour tenants were extended, and abuses such as requiring 30 days work (five weeks of six days), rather than allowing Sundays as rest days, for each month of thangata or requiring that women heading households should work to satisfy rent due were introduced. The demand for estate labour declined in the 1920s, and British Central Africa Company
3072-406: The size of a standard American football field . To be more exact, one acre is 90.75% of a 100-yd-long by 53.33-yd-wide American football field (without the end zone ). The full field, including the end zones, covers about 1.32 acres (0.53 ha). For residents of other countries, the acre might be envisioned as rather more than half of a 1.76 acres (0.71 ha) football pitch . The word acre
3136-433: The size of the gardens that tenants could plant for their own use on company land in 1945, many of them refused to pay any rent. Some 1,250 tenants were threatened with eviction and, although the government limited the actual evictions to 120, those spared eviction still felt resentment towards the company. There was a further crisis in 1952 and 1953 when a collapse in world tea prices put the British Central Africa Company into
3200-443: The term thangata applied both to rent in kind, common on tobacco and cotton estates, and to the older form of labour thangata, which persisted on the tea estates that required direct labour. Cotton was first planted in the Shire valley by Eugene Sharrer, and the British Central Africa Company continued to grow cotton on its Chelumbo and Chikwawa estates. From 1903 the company also encouraged cotton cultivation by African smallholders in
3264-487: The tobacco those tenants produced. It took many years for tea to become a major crop in Nyasaland, and in the colonial period it was almost exclusively grown on estates. From 1922 to 1932, each year saw a small but significant increase in the acreage of tea, most of which was in Mlanje District. After 1931, tea growing expanded into Cholo District, where the British Central Africa Company had large estates, and for
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#17327835520103328-466: The traditional unit of area was Morgen . Like the acre, the morgen was a unit of ploughland, representing a strip that could be ploughed by one man and an ox or horse in a morning. There were many variants of the morgen , differing between the different German territories, ranging from 1 ⁄ 2 to 2 + 1 ⁄ 2 acres (2,000 to 10,100 m ). It was also used in Old Prussia , in
3392-540: The traditional unit of area was the arpent carré , a measure based on the Roman system of land measurement. The acre was used only in Normandy (and neighbouring places outside its traditional borders), but its value varied greatly across Normandy, ranging from 3,632 to 9,725 square metres, with 8,172 square metres being the most frequent value. But inside the same pays of Normandy, for instance in pays de Caux ,
3456-610: The two following decades the amount of tea grown increased steadily. The expansion of tea-planting in Cholo led to a shortage of African labour by 1938. During the Second World War, this labour shortage was contained, but after 1945 it became acute. In 1945, the British Central Africa Company planted 1,147 of the 12,321 acres of tea in Cholo District, making it the second largest producer in that district. The company had formerly relied on labour tenants for much of its workforce, but in 1946, its local Manager complained that thangata
3520-585: Was aker . According to the Act on the Composition of Yards and Perches , dating from around 1300, an acre is "40 perches [ rods ] in length and four in breadth", meaning 220 yards by 22 yards. As detailed in the diagram, an acre was roughly the amount of land tillable by a yoke of oxen in one day. Before the enactment of the metric system , many countries in Europe used their own official acres. In France,
3584-509: Was acquired by the Lonrho group, both in 1964. The British Central Africa Company Ltd was said to be "of London", implying that it was once registered in England, but no current English registration can now be traced, although the company had a London office based at Thames House London EC2. The company's name was changed to The Central Africa Company Ltd and it became a subsidiary of Lonrho (Malawi) Ltd in 1964. The original Malawi headquarters of
3648-544: Was described as an archetypal colonial outsider, arrived in Central Africa in 1888 and soon began working in the ivory trade. His trading venture developed into the wholesale and retail business of Kubula Stores Ltd, and he diversified by acquiring large landholdings and building up a successful farming business. Sharrer also built up and operated one of the fleets of steamers on the Zambezi and Shire rivers through
3712-571: Was low and the cool weather was unsuitable for cotton. With the construction of the Shire Highlands Railway from Port Herald to Blantyre, which opened in 1908, the estates began to grow Flue-cured tobacco , and The British Central Africa Company Ltd was able to interest the Imperial Tobacco Company in Nyasaland tobacco. The company imported good quality seed and brought in experts, at first aiming to produce cigar leaf, but later concentrating on flue-cured leaf for cigarettes. By 1907,
3776-490: Was one of several European-owned firms engaged in general wholesale and retail trading. The largest of these was Mandala, owned by the African Lakes Corporation which, in addition to its main urban stores, had opened a chain of around 50 rural retail stores. After the First World War, Kubula Stores was the main rival to Mandala but it largely failed to penetrate the rural areas. The Kubula Stores business
3840-494: Was prepared to sell inferior land, and in 1948 the government bought freehold land from the British Central Africa Company in the Chingale area in the western part of Zomba District to convert it to land held by customary tenure and resettle Africans evacuated from other estates in the Shire valley and highlands on it. The Chingale resettlement scheme took place from 1948 to 1954. Following a serious famine in 1949, Geoffrey Colby,
3904-723: Was sold to the African Lakes Corporation in the 1920s and the Kubula Stores Ltd company was struck-off the Register of Companies in 1943. The business of Sharrer's Zambezi Traffic Company Ltd was transferred to the British Central Africa Company Ltd in 1902. The company ran riverboat services from the British concession of Chinde at the mouth of the Zambezi to Chiromo on the Shire River until
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#17327835520103968-511: Was the first estate owner to modify thangata. The company issued seed to African tenants so that they could grow cotton or tobacco under supervision, and then sell their crops to the company at low prices. The Natives on Private Estates Ordinance 1928 formalised this arrangement by allowing landlords to receive rents in cash, in a fixed quantity of acceptable crops or by direct labour. The types of permissible crops and their quantities were fixed for each district by government officials. At this time,
4032-401: Was understood as a strip of land sized at forty perches (660 ft, or 1 furlong ) long and four perches (66 ft) wide; this may have also been understood as an approximation of the amount of land a yoke of oxen could plough in one day (a furlong being "a furrow long"). A square enclosing one acre is approximately 69.57 yards, or 208 feet 9 inches (63.61 metres), on
4096-429: Was virtually unenforceable, as the workers ignored their contracts with impunity. The company had a very poor relationship with the tenants on its two estates of in northern Cholo and was unable to enforce unpopular thangata agreements or Sunday working. The bulk of the 103,957 acres the company owned in the district were undeveloped, and local people wanted access to this land. After the company introduced restrictions on
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