The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-01-09 00:00:00

A CHALDRON OF COALS.

Some useful information with regard to the legal
weight of a chaldron of coals is given in the report of
the Warden of the Standards (Board of Trade) just
issued (remarks the Pall Mali Gazette). It appears
that, during the past year, an application was made
to the Standards Department on the part of the Dean
and Chapter of Westminster for an authoritative
statement of the legal weight of a chaldron of coals,
the question raised being whether a chaldron of coals
was equivalent in weight to 24cwt. or 24cwt. In the
reply to this question it is stated that the ehaldre,
chalder, or chaldron of coals was originally a measure
containing 36 Winchester bushels. The legal coal
bushel was altered and made a little larger in 1713,
and was defined as a measure made round with a plain

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and even bottom 19:, inches from outside to 01.1i:side,
and to contain one Winchester bushel and one quart
of water. A standard coal bushel was made and kept
at the Exchequer in pursuance of the provisions of
this Act. The legal measure of coals was regulated
by this standard coal bushel until the imperial coal
bushel was legalized in 1824 as the only standard

be soldl by weight only. The weight of a chaldron of
coal appears to have been first defined in 1695, so far
as regards the carriage by sea of Newcastle coal!,
when 53ewt. were allowed to every chaldron. This
chaldron, however, was known as "Newcastle
measure ;" but in a later statute of the same year an
equivalent duty of 6s. per chaldron was imposed upon
coals sold by measure, reckoning 36 bushels to the
chaldron, Winchester measure, and per ton 4poilcoals
sold by weight, showing the chaldron of cOal,s be
considered as equal in quantity to the ton of coals.
Although the sale of coals by weight was made im-
perative throughout the United Kingdom by the
above-mentioned Weights and Measures Act of 1835,
a local Act passed in 1831 had Previously required all
coals to be sold by weight andY not br'measure from
and after the let of January, 1832, within the cities
of London and Westminster, and within the distance
of 25 miles from the General Post Office. Section

44 of this Act enacted that all oontracts and agree-
ments for the sale and delivery of coal by measure
within these limits made previously and not then com-
pleted should be and continue in full force and virtue,
except that such coals should be delivered by weight
and not by measure, and for that purpose 25i cwt.
should be considered and taken to be equivalent to the
chaldron. This is, therefore, the equivalent in legal
weight of a chaldron measure of coals within twenty-
five miles of the General Post-office. Householders
are perhaps not generally aware that, while coal can
be legally sold by weight only, coke is (or ought to be)
still sold by measure only, under the provisions of the
Weights and Measures Act of 1825, 5 George 4, cap.
74, modified as to the regulations for heaped measure
by section 8 of 5 and 6 Will. 4, cap. 63, under which
a Inishel of coke sold is to be the quantity contained
in an imperial bushel "filled in all parts as nearly to
the level of the brim as the size and shape of the
article will admit." Section Bof 5 George 4, cap. 74,
directs that three bushels shall be a sack, and twelve
such sacks shall be a chaldron.