Timeline

Selected excerpts from the bibliography of Marks and Marking of Weights and Measures of the British Isles^[8]

• 1215 Magna Carta — the earliest statutory declaration for uniformity of weights and measures
• 1335 8 & 9 Edw. 3. c. 1 — First statutory reference describing goods as avoirdupois
• 1414 2 Hen. 5. c. 4 — First statutory mention of the Troy pound
• 1495 12 Hen. 7. c. 5 — New Exchequer standards were constructed, including Winchester capacity measures defined by Troy weight of their content of threshed wheat by stricken (i.e. level) measure (first statutory mention of Troy weight as standard weight for bullion, bread, spices etc.).^[9]
• 1527 Hen VIII — Abolished the Tower pound
• 1531 23 Hen. 8. c. 4 — Barrel to contain 36 gallons of beer or 32 of ale; kilderkin is half of this; firkin is half again.^[10]
• 1532 24 Hen. 8. c. 3 — First statutory references to use of avoirdupois weight.^[11]
• 1536 28 Hen. 8. c. 4 — Added the tierce (41 gallons)
• 1588 (Elizabeth I) — A new series of Avoirdupois standard bronze weights (bell-shaped from 56 lb to 2 lb and flat-pile from 8 lb to a dram), with new Troy standard weights in nested cups, from 256 oz to 1⁄8 oz in a binary progression.
• 1601–1602 — Standard bushels and gallons were constructed based on the standards of Henry VII and a new series of capacity measures were issued.
• 1660 12 Cha. 2. c. 24 — Barrel of beer to be 36 gallons, taken by the gauge of the Exchequer standard of the ale quart; barrel of ale to be 32 gallons; all other liquors retailed to be sold by the wine gallon
• 1689 1 Will. & Mar. c. 24 — Barrels of beer and ale outside London to contain 34 gallons
• 1695 7 Will. 3. c. 24 (I) — Irish Act about grain measures decreed: unit of measure to be Henry VIII's gallon as confirmed by Elizabeth I; i.e. 272+1⁄4 cubic inches; standard measures of the barrel (32 gallons), half-barrel (16 gallons), bushel (8), peck (2), and gallon lodged in the Irish Exchequer; and copies were provided in every county, city, town, etc.
• 1696 8 & 9 Will. 3. c. 22 — Size of Winchester bushel "every round bushel with a plain and even bottom being 18+1⁄2″ wide throughout and 8″ deep" (i.e. a dry measure of 2150 in³ per gallon).
• 1706 6 Ann. c. 11 — Act of Union decreed the weights and measures of England to be applied in Scotland, whose burgs (towns) were to take charge of the duplicates of the English Standards sent to them.
• 1706 6 Ann. c. 27 — Wine gallon to be a cylindrical vessel with an even bottom 7″ diameter throughout and 6″ deep from top to bottom of the inside, or holding 231 in³ and no more.
• 1713 12 Ann. c. 17 — The legal coal bushel to be round with a plain and even bottom, 19+1⁄2 inches from outside to outside and to hold 1 Winchester bushel and 1 quart of water.
• 1718 5 Geo. 1. c. 18 — Decreed Scots Pint to be exactly 103 in³.
• 1803 43 Geo. 3. c. 151 — Referred to wine bottles making about 5 to the wine gallon (i.e. Reputed Quarts)
• 1824 5 Geo. 4. c. 74 — Weights and Measures Act 1824 completely reorganized British metrology and established Imperial weights and measures; defined the yard, troy and avoirdupois pounds and the gallon (as the standard measure for liquids and dry goods not measured by heaped measure), and provided for a 'brass' standard gallon to be constructed.
• 1825 6 Geo. 4. c. 12 — Delayed introduction of Imperial weights and measures from 1 May 1825 to 1 January 1826.
• 1835 5 & 6 Will. 4. c. 63 — Weights and Measures Act 1835 abolished local and customary measures, including the Winchester bushel; made heaped measure illegal; required trade to be carried out by avoirdupois weight only, except for bullion, gems and drugs (which were to be sold by troy weight instead); decreed that all forms of coal were to be sold by weight and not measure; legalised the 'stone' as 14 lb (6.4 kg), the 'hundredweight' as 112 lb (51 kg), and the (long) ton as 20 hundredweight, or 2,240 lb (1,020 kg).
• 1853 16 & 17 Vict. c. 29 — Permitted the use of decimal bullion weights.
• 1866 29 & 30 Vict. c. 82 — Standards of Weights, Measures, and Coinage Act 1866 transferred all duties and standards from the Exchequer to the newly created Standards Department of the Board of Trade.
• 1878 41 & 42 Vict. c. 49 — Weights and Measures Act 1878 defined the Imperial standard yard and pound; enumerated the secondary standards of measure and weight derived from the Imperial standards; required all trade by weight or measure to be in terms of one of the Imperial weights or measures or some multiple part thereof; abolished the Troy pound.
• 1963 c. 31 — Weights and Measures Act 1963 abolished the chaldron of coal, the fluid drachm and minim (effective 1 February 1971), discontinued the use of the quarter, abolished the use of the bushel and peck, and abolished the pennyweight (from 31 January 1969).

Administrative units

Hide

four to eight bovates. A unit of yield, rather than area, it measured the amount of land able to support a single household for agricultural and taxation purposes.

Knight's fee

five hides. A knight's fee was expected to produce one fully equipped soldier for a knight's retinue in times of war.

Hundred or wapentake

100 hides grouped for administrative purposes.

General liquid measures

Liquid measures as binary submultiples of their respective gallons (ale or wine):

Wine

Wine is traditionally measured based on the wine gallon and its related units. Other liquids such as brandy, spirits, mead, cider, vinegar, oil, honey, and so on, were also measured and sold in these units.^[17]

The wine gallon was re-established by Queen Anne in 1707 after a 1688 survey found the Exchequer no longer possessed the necessary standard but had instead been depending on a copy held by the Guildhall.^{[citation needed]} Defined as 231 cubic inches, it differs from the later imperial gallon, but is equal to the United States customary gallon.

Rundlet

18 wine gallons or 1⁄7 wine pipe

Wine barrel

31.5 wine gallons or 1⁄2 wine hogshead

Tierce

42 wine gallons, 1⁄2 puncheon or 1⁄3 wine pipe

Wine hogshead

2 wine barrels, 63 wine gallons^[18] or 1⁄4 wine tun

Puncheon or tertian

2 tierce, 84 wine gallons or 1⁄3 wine tun

Wine pipe or butt

2 wine hogshead, 3 tierce, 7 roundlet or 126 wine gallons

Wine tun

2 wine pipe, 3 puncheon or 252 wine gallons

Ale and beer

Pin

4.5 gallons or 1⁄8 beer barrel

Firkin

2 pins, 9 gallons (ale, beer or goods) or 1⁄4 beer barrel

Kilderkin

2 firkins, 18 gallons or 1⁄2 beer barrel

Beer barrel

2 kilderkins, 36 gallons or 2⁄3 beer hogshead

Beer hogshead

3 kilderkins, 54 gallons or 1.5 beer barrels

Beer pipe or butt

2 beer hogsheads, 3 beer barrels or 108 gallons

Beer tun

2 beer pipes or 216 gallons

Grain and dry goods

The Winchester measure, also known as the corn measure, centered on the bushel of approximately 2,150.42 cubic inches, which had been in use with only minor modifications since at least the late 15th century. The word corn at that time referred to all types of grain. The corn measure was used to measure and sell many types of dry goods, such as grain, salt, ore, and oysters.^[21]

However, in practice, such goods were often sold by weight. For example, it might be agreed by local custom that a bushel of wheat should weigh 60 pounds, or a bushel of oats should weigh 33 pounds. The goods would be measured out by volume, and then weighed, and the buyer would pay more or less depending on the actual weight. This practice of specifying bushels in weight for each commodity continues today. This was not always the case though, and even the same market that sold wheat and oats by weight might sell barley simply by volume. In fact, the entire system was not well standardized. A sixteenth of a bushel might be called a pottle, hoop, beatment, or quartern, in towns only a short distance apart. In some places potatoes might be sold by the firkin—usually a liquid measure—with one town defining a firkin as 3 bushels, and the next town as 2 1/2 bushels.^[22]

The pint was the smallest unit in the corn measure. The corn gallon, one eighth of a bushel, was approximately 268.8 cubic inches. Most of the units associated with the corn measure were binary (sub)multiples of the bushel:^[17][21]

Other units included the wey (6 or sometimes 5 seams or quarters), and the last (10 seams or quarters).^[17][21]

Specific goods

Perch

24.75 cubic feet of dry stone, derived from the more commonly known perch, a unit of length equal to 16.5 feet.^[23]

Cord

128 cubic feet of firewood, a stack of firewood 4 ft × 4 ft × 8 ft^[24]

Chemistry

Fluid-grain

The volume of 1 grain of distilled water at 62 °F, 30 inHg pressure.^[25]

At that reference, water has a density of ≃ 0.9988g⁄ml (438.0grain/imp fl oz or 1.001oz_av/imp fl oz), and thus:

= 1.096 imperial minim^[26] = .06488 ml or approximately a drop.

Avoirdupois

Troy and Tower

The Troy and Tower pounds and their subdivisions were used for coins and precious metals. The Tower pound, which was based upon an earlier Anglo-Saxon pound, was replaced by the Troy pound when a proclamation dated 1526 required the Troy pound to be used for mint purposes instead of the Tower pound.^[28] No standards of the Tower pound are known to have survived.^[29]

Established in the 8th century by Offa of Mercia, a pound sterling (or "pound of sterlings"^[30]) was that weight of sterling silver sufficient to make 240 silver pennies.^[31]

Apothecary

Grain (gr)

= 64.79891 mg

Scruple (s ap)

20 gr

Dram (dr ap)

3 s ap = 60 gr

Ounce (oz ap)

8 dr ap = 480 gr

Pound (lb ap)

5760 gr = 1 lb t

Others

Merchants/Mercantile pound

15 oz tower = 6750 gr ≈ 437.4 g

London/Mercantile pound

15 oz troy = 16 oz tower = 7200 gr ≈ 466.6 g

Mercantile stone

12 lb L ≈ 5.6 kg

Butcher's stone

8 lb ≈ 3.63 kg

Sack

26 st = 364 lb ≈ 165 kg

The carat was once specified as four grains in the English-speaking world.

Some local units in the English dominion were (re-)defined in simple terms of English units, such as the Indian tola of 180 grains.

Tod

This was an English weight for wool.^[32] It has the alternative spelling forms of tode, todd, todde, toad, and tood.^[33] It was usually 28 pounds, or two stone.^[33] The tod, however, was not a national standard and could vary by English shire, ranging from 28 to 32 pounds.^[33] In addition to the traditional definition in terms of pounds, the tod has historically also been considered to be 1⁄13 of a sack, 1⁄26 of a sarpler,^[33] or 1⁄9 of a wey.^[32]