Stoney — How to simplify British Weights and Measures. 7 



1855, and represents the best attempt that it was found practicable 

 to make, to recover the exact length of Bird's yard previous fe@ the 

 damage which it sustained in 1834. 



Similar meritorious efforts were made from time to time to 

 introduce the greatest accuracy which the State of knowledge at 

 each period permitted 1 into our standards of weight and capacity, 

 which, in earlier times, had been somewhat uncertain measures ; 

 until they have ultimately become those excellent standards which 

 are now in the custody of the Board of Trade. 



The imperial system of weights and measures was legally intro- 

 duced into the United Kingdom by the Weights and Measures Act 

 of 1824, from which date imperial standards were substituted for 

 Winchester standards which had lasted from 1588 till 1824. The 

 imperial system was subsequently modified and brought into its 

 present form in 1856, by the substitution of the avoirdupois pound 

 of 7000 grains, divided into 16 smaller ounces, for the troy pound 

 of 5760 grains divided into its 12 larger ounces. The avoirdupois 

 pound had, at various times, been divided into 15, or into 16, or 

 into 20 ounces. 



The standards legalised in 1824 were under the charge of the 

 Clerk of the House of Commons, when the great conflagration 

 took place on October 16, 1834, which destroyed the Houses of 

 Parliament, and in which the British standards were either lost 

 or so damaged that they were no longer available as standards. 

 The present writer, when between eight and nine years of age, 

 was an eye-witness of this great fire, and under circumstances 

 which caused it to make a lasting impression on his memory. A 

 few years later he reached an age when he could take notice of 

 what was going on about him in the world ; and he then followed 

 with special interest the successive steps by which it was sought 

 to restore our standards ; and also the efforts that were being 

 made by some of those who understood the subject, to obtain for 

 Englishmen the lasting advantages of a system of weights and 

 measures that had not grown up haphazard, but in which the 

 measures of length, of surface, of capacity, and the weights, are 



1 An interesting account of these successive advances will be found in " Our 

 Weights and Measures," by H. J. Chaney, Esq., Superintendent of the Weights 

 and Measures Department of the Board of Trade. 



C2 



