Caveat Emptor: Abolishing Public Measurements, Standardizing Quantities, and Enhancing Market Transparency in the London Coal Trade c1830

Abstract

This article evaluates efforts to standardize quantities in the London coal trade c1830, and traces the end of the public measurement system first introduced in the fourteenth century. Increasing traffic in coal, reduction of taxes on the commodity, inefficient public meters, etc., contributed to the demise of public measurements. This outcome was the result of extensive negotiations between merchants, the various levels of state bureaucracy, and the parliament. Switching measurement standards was difficult, if not costly, to coordinate. Abolishing public measurements and switching from volume to weight measurements was part of the efforts to strengthen governance along the commodity chain, secure property rights by making quantities predictable and alter a mechanism that powerful merchants considered had become inappropriate.

Review of periodical literature published in 2008

“…The development of steam colliers in the 1850s east coast sea‐coal trade is charted by Fenton, who attributes their success to the adoption of iron hulls, screw propellers, and water ballast, which permitted the carrying of larger quantities with less disruption from weather and tides. Velkar charts the demise of the system of public measurement of coal supplies in London. Increasing standardization and a shift from volume measurement to weight coincided with a progressive withdrawal of state involvement and the ultimate abolition in 1831 of a system first introduced in the fourteenth century.…”