Last Updated 31/03/2010

CONSISTENCY IN CAPACITY

In 1963, Dr Homer personally measured 160 balusters from the 16^th, 17^th and 18^th centuries.  Of these, only 25 had verification marks including 13 with either crowned hR or HR.  He published the results in Libra ¹², and summarised his findings in an article for this Journal entitled ‘Standard Measure?’ ¹³.  He said that these 13, which presumably had been verified in London, were on average larger than the others measuring about 1008ml or 35.5 fl oz to the quart compared to 960ml for the others He felt that his results showed a somewhat casual attitude by pewterers to producing baluster measures to size.

I wonder whether they may have been more concerned, not with accurate capacities, but with conforming to the Company’s Sizing of 1673-74 detailed by Welch ^{History of the Pewterers’ Company’, Volume II}.  This is the earliest specific mention of wine measures in the Company’s records.  As a point of interest, they also dictate that wine measures were to be made of lay metal rather than fine, which explains the rather heavy feel of baluster measures.  The weights specified were three pounds for quarts, two pounds for pints and one pound for half-pints.  Double volute measures tend to be lighter and do not conform to the Sizing being made largely in the second half of the 18th century when the Company’s powers were waning. However, bud measures made at the end of the 17^th and into the 18^th centuries may well conform.  I weighed a quart, two pints and a half-pint and they all fell within only one or two ounces under the prescribed weight, probably explained by wear and polishing for three hundred years.  Possibly, as pewter was sold by weight, the pewterers ensured the weight was always a bit below the standard but charged for the standard weight and gained an ounce or two on each sale!  Of course, this is a very small sample, and more research is needed.

THE ORIGIN OF STANDARD CAPACITIES

Having reviewed previous theories about HR marks, and before analysing the evidence I gathered, we need to try to understand the process that gave us our current standard measures of capacity, and how they were verified and marked.

Monarchs have tried to impose standard measures across the country since early medieval times.  The first successful attempt, after much earlier confusion, was the establishment by Henry VII of a Wine Standard and Ale Standard in 1496 as detailed by Professor RD Connor ¹⁵.  This gave Wine and Ale Standards respectively of 231 and 282 cubic inches per gallon, which equates to 16.65 and 20.33 fl oz per pint.  Connor debates at length the origin of these capacities but draws no firm conclusions. 

Some late 15^th century standard measures still survive.  However, even these primary standards against which the standards in daily use were to be checked throughout the country, do not conform to the amounts above!  Nevertheless, these two capacity standards were accepted during the reigns of Henry VIII and Elizabeth.  250 years later, the Carysfort Committee tried to find out why these amounts had been adopted for ale and wine.  In 1758, they applied to the Commissioners of Excise for an answer, and they in turn cited a memorandum dated 15^th May 1688 which said that ‘all beer and ale had been gauged at 282 cubic inches for a gallon and other excisable liquors at 231 cubic inches.

In 1700, the courts heard a test case against Thomas Barker, a wine importer.  It concerned excise he had paid, but because of confusion over which standard should be used in the calculations, the case was abandoned by the Crown after five hours.  The matter was left to Parliament to resolve which was done in the form of the Act 5 Anne c27, s17 of 1706 – six years later!  This stated that a lawful wine gallon should be 231 cubic inches but did not stipulate how such measures should be marked.

It is worth noting now that 23 out of the 39 measures with a variant of the HR marks bear identifiable maker’s marks, and all were London pewterers.  Another was inscribed for Westminster and one has a house mark of three birds, possibly cranes struck three times, and was found at Three Cranes Wharf perhaps belonging to an inn at that location. So 25 out of 39 were made by London makers or have a secure London provenance.  I found no measures made outside London with an HR mark and believe it is safe to conclude that this was a verification system restricted to the City of London and its surrounding districts.

The first group of measures comprising 11 examples is those marked hR without a sword (Figs. 1 & 5).  Four have identifiable touches, one by William Waters (1677-1699), two by his brother Anthony who opened shop in 1698 and one by Robert Seare (1667-1711). 

Two slim baluster measures in this group hold significantly less than the other 10 for which I have capacities.  These are both apparently early examples as they have been dated to the mid-16th century on body style, and on the size and style of their unidentified touch marks.  The Museum of London #80227 from Three Cranes Wharf contains 14.0 fl oz per pint, and the Victoria and Albert Museum #222 holds only 14.8 fl oz per pint (Fig. 1). We have no way of knowing when and under what circumstances these two measures came to have their hR marks struck, or if indeed they are of 16th century manufacture.  None of the five museum owned examples came from archaeologically datable contexts. 

We tend to think slim balusters date from the 16th century and the more squat style from towards the end of the 17th but what came in between?  It is quite possible that they continued to make slim balusters well into if not throughout the 1600s.

The hR marks are identical on the Worshipful Company’s gallon and the Museum of London’s now lidless pint #8461.  All the others in this category are different.  Dr Homer quotes the text of a London broadside issued by Lord Mayor Brocas on 28th July 1730 in a Journal article on the fraudulent verification of measures 18.  This followed previous broadsides of 1708 and 1720-21 requiring all weights and measures to be marked according to the standard of the Exchequer.  The 1730 broadside noted complaints had been made to the Court that weights and measures in daily use were not marked or sealed by the legally appointed officer, and that many plumbers and pewterers were marking or sealing unlawful weights and measures in their own workshops with imitation stamps.  The City ordered that no person should buy or sell with any weights or measures, which had not been properly marked.  Additionally, they ordered that the City’s Arms be added to the mark or seal used.  Thus, we can now be confident that marks incorporating the Arms are unlikely to date from before 1730.

This shows that pewterers were accustomed to stamping their measures with imitation verification marks, which explains the variety of designs found. Not even the Waters brothers used the same stamp!  Capacities of hR marked measures in this category range from 16.4 to 18.5 fl oz per pint.  There is no significant difference between the marks to indicate they might have been made to different capacity standards.  As stated earlier, the four I was able to weigh did conform to the company’s Sizing of 1673-74.  So perhaps Dr Homer was right when he said in his 1994 Journal article that his data ‘demonstrated a casual attitude by pewterers to producing baluster measures to size’.  For interest, the 13 he measured averaged 17.75 fl oz per pint and those in this category with the crowned hR averaged 16.55 fl oz per pint.

None of the makers died before 1699 and the earliest to open shop was William Waters in 1677.  I believe that they were all making wine measures to the standard laid down in the 1688 memorandum as confirmed by the 1706 Act.  Furthermore, it was then that the hR mark was adopted to distinguish between Wine standard and Ale standard measures.  Ale measures being marked with a crowned WR as laid down in the 1698-99 Act 21.  In other words, I believe it is unlikely that baluster measures were verified with a crowned hR before the end of the 17th century, and probably not until the introduction of the crowned WR mark.