Why did the British invent the imperial system and then abandon it?
In: Economics
They invented it because almost everyone engaged in trade needs a measurement system. Otherwise pricing and trading becomes impossible. And the wider trade spreads, the wider the system spreads. (Which system does what is a combination of historical coincidence and usefulness.)
They abandoned it, in part, because Europe settled on metric, and the UK did so much trade with mainland Europe that it made sense to align. Obviously they still use many imperial units in everyday life, but they are a lot closer to metric than, say, the US.
It was developed over a long period of time based on practical everyday units of measure that everybody had access to, in a time when high precision wasn’t needed or possible. They changed systems much later, when most of the world was adopting a different standard, and the change was coordinated and implemented by the government.
It’s not like a group of people developed the Imperial system on Monday and then changed their minds and abandoned it on Tuesday. The two decisions were made by different groups of people at different times.
The British did not invent the imperial system. It was a system that formed organically. What the British did was to standardise the weights and measurements. However this was not a uniquely British thing as this was done all over the world, to different standards. For example the British imperial system is not the same as the US standard system. Even to this day we use different standards. I have used five different inch standards originating from different parts of the world and still used in different industries, and this is long after the world have switched to metric.
And this also explains why everyone is switching to metric. It is one standard that everyone can use no matter where in the world they are and in what industry they are in. No more having to wonder if you are measuring something in US gallons or British gallons.
We haven’t abandoned it. Most people in the UK still think in imperial measurements, even if officially everything is in metric.
Trade dictates standard measurements to enable you to set quantities and prices. So “Imperial” simply standardised various measure e.g. there are 4 types of ton. A gallon weighed 10lbs, 160 oz and 20oz for a pint. Weights and measures, as the metric system originally was, were calculated from water, its weight and its volume, standard manufacturing sizes e.g. barrels.
In 1965 the UK adopted the meteic system as this fitted in trade, by far the largest, with Europe E.g. a standard building timber, a four by two, just didn’t exist, carpet, textiles in metres not yards.
Some measures resolutely stick like the pint, in pubs, and miles per gallon despite petrol being sold in litres for over 40 years.
Something that has met resolute resistance is show sizes (Germany has the same sizes as they also have the same billion, a million million but now generally adopted the US thousand million) . Standard hoe sizes arose when a cobbler made boots for a king which didn’t fit. A baby’s foot was the base and measured in barleycorns (3 to the inch). Each shoe size increase is one barleycorn. The US size is one size larger than the UK (and Germany) as the early settler babies were smaller than UK ones.
The UK still persists for some in olde worlde terms, your own weight in stones (14lbs) and pounds instead of kg, ounces for small quantities instead of gms, pint instead of millilitres/litres. Yards instead of metres and worst of all miles instead of kilometres.
there is an age band…some older resolutely stick to old measurements whilst younger have no idea what the older are taking about, 100 yards how far is that. And the especially dimwitted section of society that want Imperial reintroducing so as to avoid them having to learn, despite 60 years later, something new. 16 ounces to a pound, 14 pounds to a stone 20 fluid ounces to a pint,…and don’t get me on to distances and areas!
UK went metric with money in 1971 which was seamless. The old won’t understand it…bollox. The old were the generatiin that. Ould do lightning calculations in their head so metric was a doddle. Old money 12 pennies to a shilling, two shillings to a florin, two shillings and six pence to a half crown, 20 shillings or 10 florins or 8 half crowns or 240 pennies to a pound, unless it was a Guinea which was 21 shillings. 100 pence to a pound. Simples.
The Imperial system arose organically out of necessity, which is why a lot of the units have weird conversions, or otherwise don’t fit perfectly together. Basically as standard units for different values- weight, volume, length, area, etc. became necessary, they were adopted. Some are independent, others derived from other units, and some technically measure the same thing (acres and square feet both measure area for instance). The SI (metric) system was intentionally constructed from the ground up with all of these types of units already considered, and with a rule that everything has to scale in powers of 10, and everything has to derive back to the same base units (meter, kilogram, second). Britain has shifted away from imperial units for a number of reasons, but mainly for trading purposes with countries that had already adopted SI.
Did we? Or is it just me that I know I’m 12 1/2 Stone….probably. No idea what that is in kg though… I know there’s 14 pounds in a Stone, and 16 ounces is a pound
I know 25g is about an ounce, but that’s only because I roll my own.
Miles, not Kilometres…etc.
For engineering and science though, it’s easier (and safer) to speak the same language, as it were, so we use metric for that.
I’m still annoyed when i buy a four-pinter of milk and only get 2 litres though…*looking at you, Spar*
The British invented THEIR system, it’s called “Imperial” because it was common in the British Empire but the French also had an “Imperial” system that didn’t match the British one, same thing with the Russians and many other.
A system is effective when everyone uses it, if you trade mostly inside your empire it works but once you go outside becomes more difficult(especially when your ruler decides to change it to suit himself making precious measurements useless), that’s why a “Standard” system, equal everywhere, became necessary. All the countries had different systems that were abandoned once a new system was standardized.
Plus the metric system offers better qualities than imperial, because it’s created by weird people like scientists instead of our eternal and perfect Emperor.
They didn’t invent it. They adopted and standardised existing measurements. Most European countries did the same, but with their own national standards. For example, The Netherlands had their own version of the foot – the Voet – which was divided into 10, 11, 12 or 13 Dutch duim (which is roughly an inch) depending on province. The neighbouring countries of France and Belgium had their own pied (foot). And similar applies to weight and volume. This is obviously inconvenient for trade.
Metric was nice because it was the same in every country, and the consistent size of divisions made it easy to learn. It allowed for much easier trade.
Britain wanted to trade with Europe. It made sense to switch.
It hasn’t been abandoned. We still measure human height in feet and inches, our road distances in miles and speeds in miles per hour, our race courses in furlongs (and some of the prizes thereon in guineas), our beer in pints, and (for some of us at least) our sausages in pounds. The penalty spot on every football pitch in the world is still 12 yards away from a goal which is 8 yards wide and 8 feet high, and the wickets on every cricket pitch a chain apart. And we still inch toward our goals as we try to fathom the meaning of life.
Just because we have been forced to accept standardisation to the arbitrary and abstract SI system for the sake of trading and doing science with the arithmetically challenged rest of the world does not mean that we have turned our backs on the rational human scales of proper measurement gifted to us by our wise ancestors.
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