Metrology and the state: Science, revenue, and commerce

Science

Volumn 306, Issue 5700, 2004, Pages 1314-1317

  Ashworth, William J ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

BEHAVIORAL RESEARCH; INDUSTRIAL ECONOMICS; SOCIAL ASPECTS; TECHNICAL PRESENTATIONS;

COMMODITY; HUMAN BODY; MONEY; REVENUES;

PROFESSIONAL ASPECTS;

MEASUREMENT METHOD;

COMMERCIAL PHENOMENA; GOVERNMENT; MEASUREMENT; METROLOGY; MONEY; PRIORITY JOURNAL; QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS; REVIEW; SCIENCE;

EID: 8844281566     PISSN: 00368075     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1126/science.1102551     Document Type: Review

References (37)

1. A. Smith, in Lectures on Justice, Police, Revenue and Arms; Delivered in the University of Glasgow and Reported by a Student in 1763, E. Cannan, Ed. (Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, 1896), pp. 183.
2. W. J. Ashworth, Customs and Excise: Trade, Production and Consumption in England 1640-1845 (Oxford Univ. Press, Oxford, 2003), chap. 15.
3. S. Schaffer, in Rethinking Social History: English Society 1570-1920 and its Integration, A. Wilson, Ed. (Manchester Univ. Press, Manchester, 1993), pp. 128-157.
4. For plebian suspicions of state quantification, see R. Sheldon, A. Randall, A. Charlesworth, D. Walsh, in Markets, Market Culture and Popular Protest in Eighteenth-Century Britain and Ireland, A. Randall, A. Charlesworth, Eds. (Univ. of Liverpool Press, Liverpool, UK, 1996), pp. 25-45.
5. W. D. Patlenden, in vol. 20 of Bulletin of the Cleveland and Teesside Local History Society (Society of Middlesbrough, 1973), pp. 12-14.
6. For the commissioners, see U.K. House of Commons, "Thirteenth report of the committee appointed to examine the public accounts," Sessional Papers, 1785, vol. 44, p. 18.
7. See also the Public Record Office, Customs 41/1, 14 July 1713 (Kew, UK, 1713).
8. C. Leadbetter, The Royal Gauger; Or, Gauging made Easy, As it is actually practised by the Officers of His Majesty's Revenue of Excise (E. Wicksteed, London, ed. 2, 1743), p. 119.
9. C. Leadbetter, The Royal Gauger; Or, Gauging made Easy, As it is actually practised by the Officers of His Majesty's Revenue of Excise (E. Wicksteed, London, ed. 2, 1743), p. 120.
10. One pound troy was in proportion to the cubic inches contained in a wine gallon, whereas 1 pound avoirdupois was "very near" the cubic inches contained in an ale gallon.
11. "Proposals for altering the gauge of wines and brandies," [Cholmondley Houghton Papers, Cambridge Univ. Library, manuscript no. 44/93, n.d. (probably early 1730s)].
12. C. Leadbetter,The Royal Gauger: Or, Gauging made Easy, As it is actually practised by the Officers of His Majesty's Revenue of Excise (E. Wicksteed, London, ed. 2, 1743), p. 117.
13. U.K. House of Commons, "Report from the committee appointed to enquire into the original standards of weights and measures in this kingdom," Sessional Papers, 1758, vol. 19, p. 376.
14. J. Hoppitt, Eng. Hist. Rev. 108, 82 (1993).
15. R. E. Zupko, Revolution in Measurement: Western European Weights and Measures Since the Age of Science (Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, 1990), p. 26.
16. P. Linebaugh, The London Hanged: Crime and Civil Society in the Eighteenth Century (Penguin, London, 1991), pp. 162-163.
17. For the seventeenth-century commentator, see A Sure Guide for His Majesties Justices of Peace (Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1663), p. 441.
18. W. Kula, Measures and Men, R. Szreter, Trans. (Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton, NJ, 1986), p. 70.
19. T. Porter, Trust in Numbers: The Pursuit of Objectivity in Science and Public Life (Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton, NJ, 1995), p. 223.
20. Colonies usually, but not always, adopted the measures of the occupying country (24).
21. Brit. Rev. London Crit. Rev. IX, 159 (1817).
22. J. T. Graham, M. Stevenson, Weights and Measures and Their Marks: A Guide to Collecting (Shire Publications, Haverford-West, ed. 3, 1993), pp. 3-4.
23. G. S. Keith, Different Methods of Establishing an Uniformity of Weights and Measures Stated and Compared (J. Johnson & Co., London, 1817), p. 1.
24. J. J. McCusker, William Mary Q. 30, 599 (1973).
25. For numerous other Scottish-English legal variations in metrology, see R. E. Zupko, Revolution in Measurement: Western European Weights and Measures Since the Age of Science (Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, 1990), pp. 5-7.
26. "An account of a comparison lately made by some gentlemen of the Royal Society of the standard of a yard, and the several weights lately made for their use," Philos. Trans. R. Soc. 42, 541 (1742).
27. During the Middle Ages, City of London officials were in charge of stamping and testing bronze and brass weights at the Guildhall jointly with the Worshipful Company of Founders until 1579 (37).
28. U.K. House of Commons, "Report from the committee appointed to enquire into the original standards of weights and measures in this kingdom," Sessional Papers, 1758, vol. 19, p. 352.
29. G. S. Keith, Different Methods of Establishing an Uniformity of Weights and Measures Stated and Compared (J. Johnson & Co., London, 1817), p. 2.
30. R. E. Zupko, Revolution in Measurement: Western European Weights and Measures Since the Age of Science (Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, 1990), pp. 105-107.
31. R. E. Zupko, Revolution in Measurement: Western European Weights and Measures Since the Age of Science (Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, 1990), pp. 107-108.
32. W. J. Ashworth, Technol. Culture 42, 27 (2001).
33. For an account of the implementation and reception to the French metric system, see K. Alder, in Values of Precision, M. Norton Wise, Ed. (Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton, NJ, 1997), pp. 39-71.
34. R. E. Zupko, Revolution in Measurement: Western European Weights and Measures Since the Age of Science (Memoirs of the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, 1990), pp. 178-179.
35. B. R. Leftwich, Customs: The Story of a Great Department (Customs and Excise Museum, Liverpool Galleries and Museums, n.d.), p. 207. John Bird gained immense prestige during the eighteenth century for the precision instruments he made for the astronomer royal, James Bradley.
36. J. Bateman, The Excise Officer's Manual, and Improved Practical Gauger; Being a Compendious Introduction to the Business of Charging and Collecting the Duties of Excise (A. Maxwell, London, 1840), pp. 28-29.
37. J. T. Graham, M. Stevenson, Weights and Measures and Their Marks: A Guide to Collecting (Shire Publications, Haverford-West, ed. 3, 1993), p. 1.