Dear Carleton and All, In response to your thought: > Hundredweights (112 lbs, not 100, don¹t ask me why) > Quarters (28 lbs, not 25 two stone apparently make a quarter) > Pounds same thing as any other pound > If you go to Russ Rowlett's web page at http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/custom.html and search for 'hundredweight', you will find this.
** Since at least 1400 a standard weight unit in Britain has been the hundredweight, which is equal to 112 avoirdupois pounds rather than 100. There were very good reasons for the odd size of this "hundred": 112 pounds made the hundredweight equivalent for most purposes with competing units of other countries, especially the German zentner and the French quintal. Furthermore, 112 is a multiple of 16, so the British hundredweight can be divided conveniently into 4 quarters of 28 pounds, 8 stone of 14 pounds, or 16 cloves of 7 pounds each. The ton, originally a unit of wine measure, was defined to equal 20 hundredweight or 2240 pounds. During the nineteenth century, an unfortunate disagreement arose between British and Americans concerning the larger weight units. Americans, not very impressed with the history of the British units, redefined the hundredweight to equal exactly 100 pounds. The definition of the ton as 20 hundredweight made the disagreement carry over to the size of the ton: the British "long" ton remained at 2240 pounds while the American "short" ton became exactly 2000 pounds. (The American hundredweight became so popular in commerce that British merchants decided they needed a name for it; they called it the cental.) Today, most international shipments are reckoned in metric tons, which, coincidentally, are rather close in weight to the British long ton. ** As you point out in your postscript (below) the hundredweight is relatively close to 50 kilograms; it follows that the German zentner and the French quintal must have been close to 50 kilograms as well. On the other issues you raise here, you are right that there were 28 pounds to a hundredweight, but you are on more shaky ground when you say that there were 2 stones to a quarter. This was only true for a 'butcher's stone' as a 'fruiterer's stone' was equivalent to 8 pounds (so there were 14 fruiterer's stones to a hundredweight!) Also, the pound you refer to was the pound of 400 years ago I don't know its definition at that time but I am sure that it was not the same as the modern (metric) pound that has been exactly 453.592 37 grams only since 1958. I think that the Troy pound is also a metric Troy pound now so that the ratio between the avoirdupois pound and the Troy pound could be maintained a a nice round 175/144 to make the modern (metric) Troy pound equal to 551.240 727 4 grams, also only since 1958. Cheers, Pat Naughtin PO Box 305, Belmont, 3216 Geelong, Australia Phone 61 3 5241 2008 Pat Naughtin is the editor of the free online monthly newsletter, 'Metrication matters'. Subscribe at http://www.metricationmatters.com/newsletter Pat is recognised as a Lifetime Certified Advanced Metrication Specialist (LCAMS) with the United States Metric Association. 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On 2007 04 19 8:46 AM, "Carleton MacDonald" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Some background first. > > About eight months ago I started learning change bell ringing at the > Washington National Cathedral a long-term effort requiring diligent and > frequent practice and the willingness to deal with the frustration of not > learning it right away! Stephen Humphreys and the others from the UK will > know immediately what this is as there are over 5000 bell towers over there. > (In North America, there are far fewer only about 42 in the USA and 8 in > Canada, with a few others in other parts of the world. As befits its origins > most of these rings (but not all) are in Episcopal/Anglican churches.) > > For those not from the UK, who may not know as much about change ringing, the > following three links may be interesting. > > The Cathedral¹s Bells > http://www.cathedral.org/cathedral/music/bells.shtml > > The Washington Ringing Society > http://www.cathedral.org/wrs/wrs.htm > > North America Guild of Change Ringers > http://www.nagcr.org/ > > As you can see from the second of the three links, there is a column > describing the Cathedral¹s bells called ³CWT². This is the traditional way to > describe the ³weight² of a bell. It came from England and is over 400 years > old. The three numbers mean, in order > > Hundredweights (112 lbs, not 100, don¹t ask me why) > Quarters (28 lbs, not 25 two stone apparently make a quarter) > Pounds same thing as any other pound > > So the largest bell at the Cathedral, called the tenor bell (the tenor is the > largest bell in any tower; the treble is the smallest; this applies no matter > how many bells there are), is described as 32-0-4, meaning 32 cwt 0 qtr 4 lb, > that is (32x112) + (0x28) + (4x1) lbs, or 3584 + 0 + 4 = 3588 lb. > > (Although these bells are very heavy, the largest weighing as much as a car, > they are so well balanced and the bearings so well crafted that one person can > easily ring any of them. Often a 60 kg woman will ring the tenor bell > described above, and there are some young teenage girls from the Cathedral > school who are learning to ring.) > > There is a bronze plaque in the ringing room in the tower entitled ³The > Cathedral Ring² describing all 10 bells, what note each plays, who donated it, > and its weight, in lbs only. Describing the weight in lbs only is not the > traditional way, but the ring was fairly new in the USA and I guess it was > felt that the UK method would be too confusing as it isn¹t used over here. > > Why is it done this way? The only guess I can come up with is that 400 years > ago, few people had mathematical ability, particularly with large numbers. So > a given property (weight in this case) was chopped up into many names so that > no one number would get that big. If you weren¹t good with large numbers > 32-0-4 was probably easier to understand than 3588. (This probably also > explains weight in stone and lb, or, for that matter, feet and inches, > ounces/cups/pints/quarts/gallons, dry pints/dry quarts/pecks/bushels, etc.) > > Now, I told you that story to tell you this one. > > There is a weekly newsletter for ringers, called The Ringing World. It is > published in the UK by the Central Council of > Church Bell Ringers. > > http://www.ringingworld.co.uk/ > > About a month and a half ago, the cover story (by Alan Blair) was of this > absolutely gigantic bell that was cast for a VERY rich person in Japan for a > tower as his ³bungalow² near the foot of Mt. Fuji. It is not part of a ring > of bells, but will stand alone. It is one of the largest bells ever made (it > actually had to be cast at a shipyard using the equipment that makes > propellers, as the Eijsbouts Bellfoundry in the Netherlands had no equipment > that could make a bell of that size). The size was described by the British > writer of the article as something like 3.82 m in diameter, 3.72 m tall, and > with a mass of 36.2 tonnes. The clapper alone was 1550 kg. Yes, all > measurements were metric (I may be a bit off on the exact figures), imperial > measure was nowhere to be found, and the article was written by a British > writer. Amazingly, the bell will be rung by HAND (four people on ropes). I > was quite pleased (and a little surprised, given the cwt tradition) to see the > bell described this way. > > The Ringing World of course also has a letters section, and I started looking > at this section in later issues with interest, wondering what the comments on > this article were going to be like. They weren¹t long in coming. Here they > are. > > First Letter Issue of February 23, 2007 > > ³Imperial Preference² > > SIR, - Alan Blair¹s articles are always welcome, but would you please wield > the editorial pencil and convert his French metric measurements into British > imperial ones. > > The impact of today¹s front cover story (9th February) was completely lost > with incomprehensible measurements! > > - P.G.S., Middlesex. > > Second Letter Issue of March 30, 2007 > > ³Metric Measures² > > SIR, - Get with it P.S. (letters, page 187). Do you still shop with £.s.d.? > > The horrible European metric system is the only one now taught in our schools. > > No wonder youngsters think we¹re odd! > > - A.C., Leicester > > Third Letter Issue of April 6, 2007 > > ³Post Imperial Delight² > > SIR, - Alan Blair¹s articles are always welcome and it was a delight to see > weights and sizes given in metric units in his 9th February piece. I am so > pleased no attempt was made to convert them into some other, long-outdated and > thoroughly confusing system. To have done so would have rendered the article > incomprehensible and robbed of any impact. > > - D.N., Hobart, Tasmania > > Carleton > > P.S. It¹s actually not too hard to estimate how big a bell is 1 cwt is > about 50.8 kg so if you know the cwt figure, divide it by 2, add two zeros, > and you¹ll come close to the mass in kg 32 cwt/2 = 16 plus 2 zeros = 1600 > kg. (Actual figure is 3588 x 0.454 = 1629 kg, rounded off. But that¹s close > enough for understanding it. This would make the mass of the bell in the > article something north of 710 cwt, as they¹d describe it.) > > > > > > > >
