Stone (unit)

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This article is about the European unit of mass. For Asian uses of 'stone', see Picul. For the
material made of rock, see Rock (geology). For other uses of the word "Stone", see Stone
(disambiguation).

stone

A 16th-century bronze 1 stone weight emblazoned with the English

coat of arms

General information

Unit system British imperial

Unit of Mass

Abbreviation st

The stone or stone weight (abbreviation: st.)[1] is an English and imperial

unit of mass equal to 14 pounds (approximately 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" for trade, with their values ranging from about 5 to
40 local pounds (roughly 3 to 15 kg) depending on the location and objects weighed.
With the advent of metrication, Europe's various "stones" were superseded by or
adapted to the kilogram from the mid-19th century on.

Contents

 1Antiquity

 2Great Britain and Ireland

o 2.1England

o 2.2Scotland

o 2.3Ireland

o 2.4Modern use

 3Elsewhere

 4Metric stone

 5See also

 6Notes

 7References

 8External links

Antiquity[edit]

Stone weight with Darius the Great-era tri-lingual inscription. 9,950g

The Eschborn Museum's 2nd-century stone weight of 40 Roman pounds (c. 13 kg), beside an ID-1-sized card
for scale.

The name "stone" derives from the use of stones for weights, a practice that dates back
into antiquity. The Biblical law against the carrying of "diverse weights, a large and a
small"[7] is more literally translated as "you shall not carry a stone and a stone (‫)אבן ואבן‬,
a large and a small". There was no standardised "stone" in the ancient Jewish world,
[8]
 but in Roman times stone weights were crafted to multiples of the Roman pound.
[9]
 Such weights varied in quality: the Yale Medical Library holds 10 and 50-pound
examples of polished serpentine,[10] while a 40-pound example at the Eschborn Museum
is made of sandstone.[11]

Great Britain and Ireland[edit]

The 1772 edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica defined the stone:[12]
STONE also denotes a certain quantity or weight of some commodities. A stone of beef,
in London, is the quantity of eight pounds; in Hertfordshire, twelve pounds; in Scotland
sixteen pounds.
The Weights and Measures Act of 1824, which applied to all of the United Kingdom of
Great Britain and Ireland, consolidated the weights and measures legislation of several
centuries into a single document. It revoked the provision that bales of wool should be
made up of 20 stones, each of 14 pounds, but made no provision for the continued use
of the stone. Ten years later, a stone still varied from 5 pounds (glass) to 8 pounds
(meat and fish) to 14 pounds (wool and "horseman's weight").[13] The Act of 1835
permitted using a stone of 14 pounds for trade[14] but other values remained in use.
James Britten, in 1880 for example, catalogued a number of different values of the
stone in various British towns and cities, ranging from 4 lb to 26 lb.[15] The value of the
stone and associated units of measure that were legalised for purposes of trade were
clarified by the Weights and Measures Act 1835 as follows: [14]
 Pound
Unit Stone kg
s

1 1 pound 1
⁄14 0.4536

14 1 stone 1 6.350

28 1 quarter 2 12.70

112 1 hundredweight 8 50.80

2,240 1 (long) ton 160 1,016

England[edit]
The English stone under law varied by commodity and in practice varied according to
local standards. The Assize of Weights and Measures, a statute of uncertain
date from c. 1300, describes stones of 5 merchants' pounds used for glass; stones of
8 lb. used for beeswax, sugar, pepper, alum, cumin, almonds,[16] cinnamon,
and nutmegs;[17] stones of 12 lb. used for lead; and the London stone of 12+1⁄2 lb. used
for wool.[16][17] In 1350 Edward III issued a new statute defining the stone weight, to be
used for wool and "other Merchandizes", at 14 pounds, [nb 2] reaffirmed by Henry VII in
1495.[19]

A nineteenth-century slide rule for estimating cattle carcass weights, calibrated in stones of 20, 17+1⁄2, 8 and 14
pounds[20]

In England, merchants traditionally sold potatoes in half-stone increments of 7 pounds.

Live animals were weighed in stones of 14 lb; but, once slaughtered, their carcasses
were weighed in stones of 8 lb. Thus, if the animal's carcass accounted for 8⁄14 of the
animal's weight, the butcher could return the dressed carcasses to the animal's owner
stone for stone, keeping the offal, blood and hide as his due for slaughtering and
dressing the animal.[21] Smithfield market continued to use the 8 lb stone for meat until
shortly before the Second World War.[22] The Oxford English Dictionary also lists:[23]
 Commodity Number of pounds

Wool 14, 15, 24

Wax 12

Sugar and spice 8

Beef and mutton 8

Scotland[edit]
The Scottish stone was equal to 16 Scottish pounds (17 lb 8 oz avoirdupois or
7.936 kg). In 1661, the Royal Commission of Scotland recommended that the Troy
stone be used as a standard of weight and that it be kept in the custody of the burgh
of Lanark. The tron (or local) stone of Edinburgh, also standardised in 1661, was 16 tron
pounds (22 lb 1 oz avoirdupois or 9.996 kg).[24][25] In 1789 an encyclopedic enumeration of
measurements was printed for the use of "his Majesty's Sheriffs and Stewards Depute,
and Justices of Peace, ... and to the Magistrates of the Royal Boroughs of Scotland"
and provided a county-by-county and commodity-by-commodity breakdown of values
and conversions for the st