The Winchester measure and enforcement of common weights and measures

 

I've been reading EP Thompson's book "Customs in Common". He spends a lot of time describing the way ordinary people tried to avoid being ripped off when buying grain and the way that there were sometimes price spikes that precipitated riots. I have posted before about the difference between the American gallon and the British gallon. The former was based on a volume of grain called the Winchester. EP Thompson describes how an Act of Charles 11 tried to set this as a standard across England for corn purchase but that there was resistance. He says that traders wanted to keep things uncertain and not standardised but that ordinary people also thought the Winchester was ripping them off because it was smaller.