Stone
Mass
That is
6.35 kg
1 stone (imperial)
The other way round: 1 t is 157.473 stone.
- Period: 1389 for wool, general from 1824 to today
- Region: the UK
- Goods: wool, livestock, body weight
Values
| Value | That is | Period | Used for |
|---|---|---|---|
| imperial | 6.35 kg | 1389 for wool, general from 1824 to today | wool, livestock, body weight · the UK |
| butcher’s meatApproximate: 8 pounds. | 3.629 kg | to the 19th century | dressed meat · England |
| glassApproximate: 5 pounds. | 2.268 kg | to the 19th century | glass · England |
What the unit was used for
The stone is the most stubbornly British unit of all: it is how most people here still state their own body weight, although it has had no standing in trade for decades.
It began as a literal stone, a good-sized rock kept as a local standard, and its value moved with the district and the commodity.
The wool trade forced the first fixing, because English wool was being exported to Florence and a variable stone was intolerable: a royal statute of 1389 set the wool stone at 14 pounds and the sack at 26 stones.
Other trades kept their own stones long afterwards, 8 pounds for butcher’s meat and 5 pounds for glass.
In the system
1 stone = 14 pounds; 2 stone = 1 quarter; 8 stone = 1 hundredweight
A story you will often hear
The eight-pound butcher’s stone is often explained by butchers returning dressed meat to the farmer stone for stone and keeping the blood, offal and hide as their fee.
What the evidence shows: The story appears only in popular sources and could not be traced to a scholarly one. The 8-pound meat stone itself is well attested; the explanation is not.