Exchequer Standards


The Exchequer Standards may refer to the set of official English standards for weights and measures created by Queen Elizabeth I, and in effect from 1588 to 1826, when the Imperial Units system took effect, or to the whole range of English unit standards maintained by the Court of the Exchequer from the 1200s, or to the physical reference standards physically kept at the Exchequer and used as the legal reference until the such responsibility was transferred in the 1860s, after the Imperial system had been established.
The Exchequer standards made in the reign of Queen Elizabeth were not authorized by any statute. The standards were ordered by the royal authority, as appears from a roll of Michaelas terms in the 29th Elizabeth, preserved in the Queen's Remembrancer's Office, and containing the royal proclamation.
The Exchequer Standards were so called because their repository had always been the Court of the King's Exchequer.
Notably, Elizabeth I's redefinition of these standards instituted the English Doubling System, whereby each larger liquid measure equals exactly two of the next-smaller measure.

Historical development

1225–1265 The Great Charter (9 Henry III.)

The Great Charter of 1225 was the first legislative act in the English statutes at large, and is a repetition of the Magna Charta by Henry III in 1300, although it is officially listed as act 9 Henry III.
With respect to the Magna Charta requiring that there be one unified measure of volume, and another for length, thus unifying disparate measurement systems used to trade each different commodity, there is an argument made that this supposition is in error, and that it actually required these remain separately defined measures, but each be consistent across the kingdom:
The Rumford corn gallon of 1228, examined by the committee of the House of Commons in 1758, was found to be 266.25 cubic inches.

Corn

According to Secretary Adams,
Adams goes on to say :
Thus, the key to the whole measurement system of 1266 was the weight of the silver penny sterling. This penny was 1/240th of the Tower pound, which had been used at the London mint for centuries before the Norman conquest, and which continued as legal tender until 1527, when Henry VIII replaced it with the Troy pound. The Tower pound weighed 3/4 Troy ounce less than the Troy pound. Its penny, therefore weighed 22.5 Troy grains.
There was also another pound used c. 1266; the commercial pound, which equaled fifteen ounces was used to measure wine and most other items of commerce.

1304–1494 (31 Edward I?)

At this point, there is not yet any mention of the avoirdupois or troy weights.

1494–1496 (10 Henry VII)

King Henry the Seventh had 43 copies of the Exchequer standards made and distributed to the principal cities of the kingdom, but these were later found to be defective, and remade in 1496.

1496– (12 Henry VII)

The 1496 statute redefined the volumetric measures based on the Troy weights, officially discarding the Tower pound and the commercial pound for defining all measures:
"The measure of a bushel contain eight gallons of wheat, that every gallon contain eight pounds of wheat, troy weight, and every pound contain twelve ounces of troy weight, and every ounce contain twenty sterlings, and every sterling be of the weight of thirty-two corns of wheat that grew in the midst of the ear of wheat, according to the old laws of the land."
Mr. Adams explains that this act of 1496 made several errors including inverting the order of the old statutes, assuming that the penny sterling, described in the acts of 1266 and 1304 was the penny weight troy, and a belief that it was the measure, and not the weight, of eight gallons of wine, which constituted the bushel. It is here that the Guildhall gallon of 224 cubic inches is created. The same act creates the gallon of 231 cubic inches,

1428 2 Henry VI, c 2

King Henry the Sixth decreed the following, which adjusted the sizes of casks "in old time it was ordained, and lawfully used, that tuns, pipes, tertians, hogsheads, of Gascoigne wine, barrels of herring and of eels, and butts of salmon, coming by way of merchandise into the land, out of strange countries, and also made in the same land, should be of certain measure; that is to say: the tun of wine 252 gallons, the pipe 126 gallons, the tertian 84 gallons, the hogshead 63 gallons, the barrel of herring and of eels 30 gallons, fully packed, the butt of salmon 84 gallons, fully packed, &c.; but that of late, by device and subtlety, such vessels have been of much less measure, to the great deceit and loss of the king and his people, whereof special remedy was prayed in the parliament."

Competing systems

By 1862, there were multiple competing and confusing systems of measurement in the United Kingdom, and suggestions for simplification and possibly even switching to the French Metric system.

Systems of Length