Few of the forms of measurement used in Georgian times are in use today. The following will, I hope, clarify matters for those who are not familiar with the old forms of British weights, measures and money.
1 ton equals 2240 pounds (not to be confused with the metric measure of 1 tonne, which is 1000 kilograms).
1 hundredweight (cwt) equals 112 pounds.
1 pound (lb) avoirdupois equals 454 grams.
16 ounces equals 1 pound.
1 ounce equals 28.375g (but is generally converted as 25g in recipes).
An English pint is 20 fl oz (560ml), an American pint is 16 fl oz (448ml). In both cases, 8 pints equals 1 gallon.
‘Wine measure’ is slightly less than the usual English liquid measure ‘Beer measure’. The wine measure, which is ⅚ of beer measure, equates to the modern American liquid measure. This difference dates from 1844, when the British dropped the old Queen Anne measure but the Americans retained it.1
‘Barrel’ and ‘Cask’ are both general terms and both refer to the old wooden, roughly round, containers which were used for both liquids and dry stuffs.
A tun, also known as a leaguer, contains approximately 250 gallons.2
A pipe contains approximately 105 gallons, and is generally used only for wine.
A hogshead contains 52½ gallons; a half-hogshead, about 26 gallons.
A butt contains 108 or 126 gallons (depending on whether the content is wine or beer).
A firkin contains 56 pounds of butter or 9 gallons beer.
A puncheon could contain anything from 70 to 120 gallons, but was more likely to contain dry stuffs. Half-puncheons were also used.
A bushel is a dry measure of volume containing 8 gallons.
It is almost impossible to calculate modern value equivalents of Georgian money; all one can do, therefore, is explain how the currency worked.
One pound sterling, written £1, or £1.0s.0d, consisted of 20 shillings, or 240 pennies. Thus 1 shilling consisted of 12 pennies, and was written as 1s, or 1/-. Its modern decimal equivalent is 5 pence.
Pennies could be divided into halfpence and farthings and were written as 1d, ½d or ¼d. The decimal equivalent, as such, does not exist, but to put it the other way round, 1 decimal penny is worth 2.4 old pennies.
Other coins included the crown, which was worth 5 shillings (25 decimal pence); half a crown, which was worth two shillings and sixpence (12½ decimal pence), the florin, which was worth two shillings (sometimes referred to as ‘two bob’ and now worth 10 decimal pence), the sixpence (a ‘tizzy’ or later, a ‘tanner’ and now worth 2½ decimal pence) and the threepenny piece or ‘thruppenny bit’.
1 guinea was worth £l.1s.0d, or 21 shillings.