Hi Pat The most up to date answers to all your questions as to WHAT happened are pretty much as in
A) R D Connor 'The weights and Measures of England 1987' (HMSO) & B) R D Connor and A D C Simpson 'Weights and measures in Scotland: a European perspective' 2004 (National Museum of Scotland) As to WHY it happened I recommend you consult (A) but not (B). My personal opinion put simply is that Connor (who is a Canadian physicist) told it more or less straight in 1987 but was kind of got at by the "historical establishment" subsequently and used the 2004 publication to recant. (primarily by moving to give Paris Troyes a false priority over Anglo-Saxon Troy) I suspect (A) will be in most decent Australian reference libraries - ought to be anyhow. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ My core point all along on USMA recently is that confusion about weight standards in the past was not driven by stupidity and incompetence as the 'FFU' label tends to imply. (IMO) it was almost always driven by deliberate chicanery. Consider England - (IMO) the "peasants rebellion" of 1381 - which was organised by the provincial middle classes and aimed primarily at foreign merchants and the foreign pope - was likely in significant part triggered by the way international bankers were rigging weights and measures to their own benefit. (selling to a short 'avoirdupois' pound, buying at an ever longer 'hundredweights' (104 then 108 then 112), trying to take �1 in the pound seigniorage on the English florin etc etc etc. There are clear links from the Peasants Rebellion to Wycliffe to Huss to Luther and so its very clear that, if I am correct, then about 300 years of Europe-wide religious warfare (more like 600 years in Northern Ireland) were initially tied to matters in significant part to do with weights and measures. The big fuss about the English florin of 1849 was not a base about Europe and decimalization. It was because educated people in 1849 still understood what European bankers had really been up to with the English florin of 1344. And the destruction/confusion regarding nearly all records and standards that bear on early English metrology are part and parcel of it being at the heart of this political bonfire. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Like all big moral questions in history - questions about weights and measures lead us back to the trial of Socrates. Was he 'telling the truth' or 'misleading the young'? best rob (PS sorry about the occasional capitals - but you did read 'ton' where I wrote 'pound' in my last) (Robert Tye, York, UK)
