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The former Weights and Measures office in Seven Sisters, London (590 Seven Sisters Road). The imperial system of units, imperial system or imperial units (also known as British Imperial [1] or Exchequer Standards of 1826) is the system of units first defined in the British Weights and Measures Act 1824 and continued to be developed through a series of Weights and Measures Acts and amendments.
The imperial system has a hundredweight, defined as eight stone of 14 lb each, or 112 lb (50.802 345 44 kg), whereas a US hundredweight is 100 lb (45.359 237 kg). In both systems, 20 hundredweights make a ton. In the US, the terms long ton (2240 lb, 1 016.046 9088 kg) and short ton (2000 lb; 907.184 74 kg) are used.
The stone or stone weight (abbreviation: st.) [1] is an English and British imperial unit of mass equal to 14 avoirdupois pounds (6.35 kg). [nb 1] The stone continues in customary use in the United Kingdom and Ireland for body weight. England and other Germanic -speaking countries of Northern Europe formerly used various standardised "stones ...
The definition of units of weight above a pound differed between the customary and the imperial system - the imperial system employed the stone of 14 pounds, the hundredweight of 8 stone [Note 6] and the ton of 2240 pounds (20 hundredweight), while the customary system of units did not employ the stone but has a hundredweight of 100 pounds and ...
The pound or pound-mass is a unit of mass used in both the British imperial and United States customary systems of measurement. Various definitions have been used; the most common today is the international avoirdupois pound, which is legally defined as exactly 0.453 592 37 kilograms, and which is divided into 16 avoirdupois ounces. [1]
In England (and the British Empire), English units were replaced by Imperial units in 1824 (effective as of 1 January 1826) by a Weights and Measures Act, which retained many though not all of the unit names and redefined (standardised) many of the definitions. In the US, being independent from the British Empire decades before the 1824 reforms ...
The avoirdupois units of mass and weight differ for units larger than a pound (lb). The British imperial system uses a stone of 14 lb, a long hundredweight of 112 lb and a long ton of 2,240 lb. The stone is not a measurement of weight used in the US.
The only troy weight in widespread use is the British Imperial troy ounce and its American counterpart. Both are based on a grain of 0.06479891 gram (exact, by definition), with 480 grains to a troy ounce (compared with 437 + 1 ⁄ 2 grains for an ounce avoirdupois). The British Empire abolished the 12-ounce troy pound in the 19th century.