Men and Measures

by Edward Nicholson

2. The Ale-gallon

Henry III proclaimed on his accession that, according to Magna Charta, there should be but one standard of measure and of weight throughout the realm, one measure of wine, one measure of ale, and one measure of corn.

There seems to be no information extant about the second of these measures; it was presumably the same as the corn-gallon. A statute of Henry VIII ordered the barrel of beer to be 36 gallons and that of ale 32 gallons, whence it may be presumed that the former were wine-gallons and the latter corn-gallons, 32 and 36 being taken as the whole numbers nearly proportionate to wine and corn measure, and admitting of the quarter-barrel being 8 gallons of ale and 9 of beer.[^[26]]

In 1496 (temp. Henry VII) a new corn-bushel was made = 2240 c.i., its gallon being 280 c.i. While it is possible that this increase was due to inaccurate casting, yet it might be that the new corn-gallon was intended to be on a water-wheat ratio with the wine-gallon, then = 224 c.i. (224 × 1-1/4 = 280), in the same way that the usual corn-gallon of 270 c.i. was in that ratio to the original 1/8 cubic foot gallon of 216 c.i. (216 × 1-1/4 = 270).[^[27]]

In 1531 the corn-gallon was increased to 282 c.i. But under Elizabeth the corn-gallon was restored to its old standard of 1/8 bushel = 2150·4/8 c.i. = 268·8 c.i. and the wine-gallon fixed at 231 c.i. At these standards both gallons stood until their unification in 1824. Confirmed by Queen Anne, they are known by her name.

But the corn-gallon of Henry VIII, = 282 c.i., remained as the Ale-gallon, probably because it had become the standard measure for malt.

The Quart and Pint

While the wine-pint was an eighth of a wine-gallon the common pint of England was the Ale-pint, an eighth of the Tudor Ale-gallon, which was 280 or 282 cubic inches and differed little from the Imperial gallon = 277·27 cubic inches. So the pint of ale in Tudor times differed little from an Imperial pint.

The Quart and Pint of Elizabeth preserved at the Standards Office are larger than Imperial measure, the Quart holding 40·53 ounces as compared with the 40 ounces of the Imperial quart; it is one-fourth of a gallon of 280 cubic inches, the Tudor ale-gallon.