A long time ago, but yesterday too. Rain On My Window (Tears in My Eyes) will be an ongoing tale of my early memories of life shared by my younger brother David on Whitehall Farm in Stronsay, Orkney, of our childhood on a working farm in the 1930s before we lost our innocence.
2 lb and 1 lb iron weights in the shop scales in W.P.Drever’s shop in Whitehall Village.
A 19th-century steelyard., but its origins go back 2000 years.to the time of Christ.
ARTICLE BEGINS. FOTOS ABOVE IF USABLE.
No 62. WEIGHTS ON THE FARM.
The weights we used in Whitehall long before metrication were the old Imperial Measure ones, sometimes called Avoirdupois for smaller items but not on the Farm. Everything was in lbs or multples thereof, lbs. stones,.quarters (2 stones), cwts, tons. Converted to the Metric Scale of today, 2.2 lbs is a near kilo { kilogram ]. And so on.
At school early on we learned by rote our Table of Weights, 16 ozs is a lb, 14 lbs is a stone, 2 stones is a quarter, 4 quarters is a cwt. 20 cwts is a ton. Phew. To hear a whole classroom reciting that was quite something. Drilled it into you. A tod was the same weight as a quarter, 28 lbs, but used only in weighing wool. Stilll, I think I have heard the word “a tod” used long since by older people but I doubt if the old quantitative meaning is now known. .
Informally, we still use a ton when we mean something very heavy. "This suitcase weighs a ton!" It is wonderful that so many people today use the phrase when they have long forgotten how much a ton weighs. Or never knew !! Such is the beauty of our English language.
The old stone of 14 lbs is now a meaningless 6.4 kilos, a cwt of 112 lbs is approx. 50 kilograms (kilos), the old ton of 2240 lbs has long been superceded by the European Tonne of 1000 kgs. It is now illegal to have bags of cement weighing a cwt, it has to be in 25 kg.bags by H. and S. E. and by European rules. We do not hear much now of “a strong man” unless it be in a T.V. Competition. Or at a Highland Games. One can marvel at the physical fitness of yesterday that gave us a cattle drover, Gunn to name from Braemore, Dunbeath, who, legend has it, walked from Inverness to Braemore in one day. I presume he took the row boat ferries at the Kessock and Dornoch Firths, but that it is not related.
. A long day I would think, but drovers were as hard as naiIs. They had to be. Driving droves of cattle from Caithness to Carlisle in the days of one of my great great grandfathers James Tait of Inkstack was not a picnic. As related by his grandson William Tait of Ingsay the Diarist in a talk he gave to the Orkney Agricultural Discussion Society pre 1939 when their Transactions were published.
We weighed grain in cwts and half cwts. It was measured in quarters which was a quantity measure of 8 bushels. Our grain bags were 4 bushel in size. I do not know the origin of the name quarter used for grain, it is a different quarter than the 28 lb tod for wool which was a simple quarter of a cwt. . A quarter of oats was 3 cwts, a half quarter 4 bu. sack held 1½ cwts. A quarter of barley was 4 cwts, a quarter of wheat was 4¼ cwts.
Our loft weighing machine was simple enough, sturdy, a tray either side of a central pivot. One tray held the weights, the other held the bag of whatever we were weighjng. Could be tatties, could be grain, could be a man himself!!
The weights were of cast iron, some had a ring handle, others had a handle part of the casting itself. All had a small hole underneath into which lead was poured or taken out to meet the standard weights as checked by the Customs at the Head of the pier. I once remember our father taking the weights down to the Village to get them certified and marked in the lead by a dated stamp.
The other measure was barrels, but by my time barrels was nearly out of use. They held sway for many long centuries. The earliest use oif barrels I have come across was in the Will and Testament of William Pottinger in Swartaquoy in Holm in Orkney in 1612 who had:-
“Sawen upone the rowme of Swartaquoy, 3 barrellis aittis weyand 1 meill 1 setting extending to 3 meillis 3 settingis, £1 6s 8d, £4 13s 4d;
In the barne, 2 barrellis beir weyand 8 settingis, £2 the meill, £2 13s 4d;
1 hardin web of 6 eln @ 4s, £1 4s; “
Much later in 1896 at the Bu of Rousam William Tait’s Diary records
1896 Sept 07 wed
Took home 4 ton 18 cwt of coal today - 14 barrel to engine - 21 barrel in coal house - 14 barrel to Thomas Miller.
Weighed in cwts, measured in barrels. That above entry makes a barrel of coal a neat 2 cwts. Just enough for one man to carry.
The coal for the engine was the steam engine which drove the threshing mill in the barn. The coal for the house was the farm house. Tom Miller got part of his wages in barrels of coal.
Potatoes were measured by the barrel. I think the old phrase “ full measure “ meant just that, fill it to the top. There was an official stamp branded on many of the barrels to certify and denote their capacity, though unstamped barrels of different sizes were used for many purposes.
Hay was sold by the stone of 14lbs., or estimated by a valuer in stones if being taken over in a new tenancy. Weighed by guesswork at times, but sometimes over the weigh-bridge in the case of some hay bought by and some sold by Wm Tait in his Diary of 1892 from the farm of Work outside Kirkwall where he worked for a few years with his brother-in-law Robert Lennie, tenant of Work Farm and married to Wm Tait’s sister Anne from Campston. In his Diary for 1892 were the entries of :-
may 03 tues Two carts at Holm for hay from Quoys –
gross weight of both carts 20 cwt 4 qrs - 43 st 6 lb. hay.
may 13 frid. At Weyland for 97 st hay – at Kirkwall for hay from Midbigging, 30 stn.
- very fine day
sept 08 thur - put a load of hay to J. & W. Tait, 29 stones.
I am sure they did not go over a weighbridge for every load so much was taken in good faith. If a weighbridge was available then it was used. Most small Islands in Orkney had one at the Head of the Pier, used in Stronsay for weighing the loads of coal we bought from David Chalmers. Horse and cart on it empty, then again when full, simple enough.
The most interesting weighing machine in Whitehaa was based on the old Roman steel yard, though it might have pre-dated the Romans. One was found in Pompei, buried in volcanic ash from the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79, stlill in working order. I think the Greeks had the steelyard even earlier. The name Steelyard, it is suggested, derives from the name of the old 14th Century Hanseatic League Trading Market Place in London. Which gave name to which I cannot tell !!
The steel yard was a beautiful balanced bar of well oiled and polished steel and brass. There were two stops to prevent it swinging too far either way. It was used to measure out meal for the workers, or for sale to anyone else. The meal was scooped out from the capacious meal girnel into the very large polished brass pan. The steelyard was suspended off centre from the rafters at a workable height. The brass scoop hung from the short end, the other end of the steel yard was a long horizontal bar measured in marked notched increments and had a sliding brass weight to move along to the balance point. It was very sensitive, a small amount of meal would tip it either way.
To we small ones the magic of the steelyard was fascinating, we never did get the mechanics of it properly into our heads.
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