George V - London City - 1917. George VI - Wolverhampton - 1940. George VI - Manchester - 1941
Edward VII - Birmingham - 'I'. Edward VII - Birmingham - 'I'.
George V - Birmingham - January 1915.
Birmingham - No additional letter.
Birmingham 'F'. Birmingham 'F'.
Birmingham 'C'. Birmingham 'D'? Birmingham 'E'.
'London City' - Round City arms. 'London City' - Shield City arms.
King George VI died in February 1952, Elizabeth II becoming monarch.
The two marks below show when the markings changed to reflect the change of monarch, a year after George VI death. The next two images show the format of Elizabeth II markings.
The images below show some of the 'border' variations that can be found.
The image below left, shows the marking from a 'Square' capacity marked, round measure.
This marking is very similar to the first pair at the top of the page, however the monarch is now George V - 'GR'.
A number '2' below the crown is the UV mark for the 'London City' W&M office.
The central shield is the London City arms and the number '17' below denotes that the testing year was 1917.
A departure from the mark above, as no test month is shown.
The images below, centre and right, also show a W&M marks without a test months.
Image centre - '65', below the 'GR' is the UV number for the Wolverhampton W&M office and the number '40' denotes 1940.
Image right - '5', between the 'G' and 'R', is the UV number for the Manchester W&M office and the number '41' denotes 1941.
The two images below show the W&M marks from a pair of Edward VII round measures.
Both are capacity marked with the 'Abbreviated' font.
The image left has the letters 'ER' below the crown and a 6 below that, for the Birmingham W&M office.
To the left of the ER grouping is the letter 'I'. Also present in the image right, below the 'ER 6' grouping.
Edward VII's reign was from early 1901 to mid 1910, a little over 9 years.
Purely speculation on my part, the letter 'I', being the 9th letter of the alphabet, may represent the 9th year of his reign - 1910?
The example below is also from the Birmingham weights and measures office, however the crown and VR grouping does not have a border and there is not an additional letter, as shown in the five examples above - 'C' to 'F' etc. I do not know the significance of this.
The mark is on a Victorian, 'Abbreviated' capacity marked, two piece construction, round measure.
The sequence of Victorian W&M marks below, all come from the Birmingham W&M office.
The number 6, below the 'VR' in each example, is the UV number for the Birmingham W&M office.
At this time, I have not been able to determine the significance of the additional letter, 'C', 'D', 'E', 'F' and 'F' in each of the five examples.
Perhaps year related, however I understood that the differing borders around the crown and VR were year related?
All of the five examples below come from Victorian round measures with the 'Abbreviated' capacity marking font, and two piece construction.
The next Victorian mark I have, includes a Unique Verification number - ( UV number ).
In 1879, legislation was introduced and metrological authorities nationwide were issued with a Unique Verification number. Some authorities however, continued to use their own marks for several years after the legislation came into effect.
The image below shows the W&M marking from a Victorian 'round measure', capacity is marked in the 'Abbreviated' font and construction is two piece.
The V and R either side of the crown denote Victoria Regina.
The digits '239' are the UV number of the W&M office at 'London County Council' and their initials - LCC are impressed below the UV number.
UV number '239' was in use from 1891.
The two oldest marks that I have in my collection are shown below. I believe that the mark shown in the image below left, is older than the image below right, although they are from the same W&M testing office.
Both marks are flanked by the initials VR - Victoria Regina, and both have the number '2' at the bottom.
The number '2' identifies that the measures were tested at the 'London City' W&M office.
The left hand image shows a crown above a circular version of the City arms, this was later replaced by a rectangular
version of the City arms, as can be seen in the image below right.
The round version was in use from the late 1830's, it was replaced at some time, by the rectangular version, which remained in use up until 1879.
I have one of each mark on a pair of 'round measures', both are of 'three piece construction' type.
One is a Gallon measure, the other a Pint, they both have the 'Square' type capacity marking font, which is unusual for Victorian measures as they mostly have the 'Abbreviated' font.
This appears to suggest that the Victorian round measures with the 'Square' capacity marking font were made by a London manufacturer and three piece construction pre dates 1879.
My collection suggests that after the reign of Edward VII, the requirements of Weights and Measures markings was changed to include the month and year.
My earliest example is 1913, however it is difficult to read, the image below shows a similar mark from 1915.
Considering the form of three characters on the right hand side: The upper character identifies the month of inspection, an alphabetic character in the renge of 'A' to 'L' -
'A' representing January, through to 'L' representing December.
The remaining two characters represent the year of inspection, in the case of the image below, 1915.
The GR in the case below is representative of George V, as the inspection year is 1915.
The number '6' below the 'GR' identifies that the Birmingham Weight and Measures office tested the measure in question.
'6' is the 'Unique Verification Number' ( UV number ) for the Birmingham W&M office.
Marks applied to Royal Navy Rum Measures by Weights and Measures offices.
The image left shows the first and only R.N. rum measue that I have seen with two UV number stamps - both GR and both Birmingham ( 6 ).
The left hand mark E/16 - May 1916, the right hand mark H/50 - August 1950.
I can only imagine that the measure was returned to a manufacturer for repair and was retested in 1950.
George VI - Birmingham - December 1952. George VI - Birmingham - January 1953.
George VI - Birmingham - February 1953. Elizabeth II - Birmingham - March 1953.
Elizabeth II - Birmingham - July 1956. Elizabeth II - Birmingham - June 1957.
George V - Birmingham - January 1915. George V - Birmingham - June 1915. George V - Birmingham March 1919
George VI - Birmingham - June 1940. George VI - Birmingham - June 1941. George VI - Birmingham - July 1941.
At the end of 1952, the 'month of test' code changed from an alphabetic character to a numeric character.
The image below left shows the last alpha mark L/52 ( December 1952 ). and below right, the first numeric mark,
1/53 ( January 1953 ).
From January 1953, the month of test code was identified by a number, '1' for January through to '12' for December.