Tierce (unit)

Last updated

The tierce (also terse) is both an archaic volume unit of measure of goods and the name of the cask of that size. [1] The most common definitions are either one-third of a pipe or forty-two gallons. In the petroleum industry - a barrel of oil is defined as 42 US gallons.

Contents

Use

The casks were roughly 20.5 inches across and were built to hold either liquids (wet cooperage) or dry goods (dry cooperage). [2] Contents ranged from sugar to rum to salted beef and fish.

History

The Oxford English Dictionary lists the first use of the term in this sense as occurring in 1531. In 1630, Ben Jonson, then the Poet Laureate of England, petitioned that the salary of the position be raised. His wish was granted, and in addition he and his successors received a tierce of wine from the Canary Islands, a tradition that continued until Henry James Pye became Laureate in 1790. [3] As opposed to several other units of measure such as the pipe, cark and frail, the definition of the tierce remained stable with similar entries found in dictionaries from 1658 through 1780. [4] By 1847, the introduction of steam technology allowed a 25-person manufacturing plant to make 15,000 tierce casks per year. [5]

Obsolescence

By 1899, proponents of the metric system could say that the tierce was one of many "marked curiosities and barbarisms" in America, [6] and by 1917 even opponents of the metric system were calling this and similar measures obsolete: "Nobody hears nowadays of the coomb, the pottle, the chaldron, the palm or the barleycorn. The perch, the puncheon, the span, the tierce and the toise are all but forgotten. Even the furlong, the gill and the rod are disappearing." [7]

Recent Research

Robert E. Hardwicke asked the question in his The Oilman's Barrel: [8] why is oil measured in 42-gallon barrels? One hypothesis was that early oil drilling in Pennsylvania used tierce whiskey barrels for storage, and the standard developed from there. Ultimately, he was unable to find adequate support for the hypothesis. [9]

Museum curator Mark Staniforth participated in the salvage operation of the 250-ton brig William Salthouse that was wrecked in 1841 near Queenscliff, Victoria, Australia. He made a detailed study of the recovered casks, noting that many of them did not meet legal standards for quality. His work provided empirical evidence of how tierce casks were actually constructed. [2]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gallon</span> Units of volume

The gallon is a unit of volume in imperial units and United States customary units. Three different versions are in current use:

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hogshead</span> Unit of volume

A hogshead is a large cask of liquid. More specifically, it refers to a specified volume, measured in either imperial or US customary measures, primarily applied to alcoholic beverages, such as wine, ale, or cider.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ton</span> Unit of mass or volume with different values

Ton is the name of any one of several units of measure. It has a long history and has acquired several meanings and uses.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">United States customary units</span> System of units of measurement commonly used in the United States

United States customary units form a system of measurement units commonly used in the United States and most U.S. territories, since being standardized and adopted in 1832. The United States customary system developed from English units that were in use in the British Empire before the U.S. became an independent country. The United Kingdom's system of measures was overhauled in 1824 to create the imperial system, which was officially adopted in 1826, changing the definitions of some of its units. Consequently, while many U.S. units are essentially similar to their imperial counterparts, there are significant differences between the systems.

Tonnage is a measure of the cargo-carrying capacity of a ship, and is commonly used to assess fees on commercial shipping. The term derives from the taxation paid on tuns or casks of wine. In modern maritime usage, "tonnage" specifically refers to a calculation of the volume or cargo volume of a ship. Although tonnage (volume) should not be confused with displacement, the long ton of 2,240 lb is derived from the fact that a "tun" of wine typically weighed that much.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barrel (unit)</span> Series of units for volume measurement

A barrel is one of several units of volume applied in various contexts; there are dry barrels, fluid barrels, oil barrels, and so forth. For historical reasons the volumes of some barrel units are roughly double the volumes of others; volumes in common use range approximately from 100 to 200 litres. In many connections the term drum is used almost interchangeably with barrel.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barrel</span> Hollow cylindrical container

A barrel or cask is a hollow cylindrical container with a bulging center, longer than it is wide. They are traditionally made of wooden staves and bound by wooden or metal hoops. The word vat is often used for large containers for liquids, usually alcoholic beverages; a small barrel or cask is known as a keg.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Drum (container)</span> Cylinderical shipping container used for shipping bulk cargo

A drum is a cylindrical shipping container used for shipping bulk cargo. Drums can be made of steel, dense paperboard, or plastic, and are generally used for the transportation and storage of liquids and powders. Drums are often stackable, and have dimensions designed for efficient warehouse and logistics use. This type of packaging is frequently certified for transporting dangerous goods. Proper shipment requires the drum to comply with all applicable regulations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cooper (profession)</span> Maker of staved vessels such as barrels

A cooper is a person trained to make wooden casks, barrels, vats, buckets, tubs, troughs and other similar containers from timber staves that were usually heated or steamed to make them pliable.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Keg</span> Small barrel, commonly used for beer

A keg is a small barrel.

The tun is an English unit of liquid volume, used for measuring wine, oil or honey. Typically a large vat or vessel, most often holding 252 wine gallons, but occasionally other sizes were also used. The modern tun is about 954 litres.

The butt is an obsolete English measure of liquid volume equalling two hogsheads, being between 450 and 1,060 litres by various definitions.

English units are the units of measurement used in England up to 1826, which evolved as a combination of the Anglo-Saxon and Roman systems of units. Various standards have applied to English units at different times, in different places, and for different applications.

Capacities of wine casks were formerly measured and standardised according to a specific system of English units. The various units were historically defined in terms of the wine gallon so varied according to the definition of the gallon until the adoption of the Queen Anne wine gallon in 1707. In the United Kingdom and its colonies the units were redefined with the introduction of the imperial system whilst the Queen Anne wine gallon was adopted as the standard US liquid gallon.

Capacities of brewery casks were formerly measured and standardised according to a specific system of English units. The system was originally based on the ale gallon of 282 cubic inches. In United Kingdom and its colonies, with the adoption of the imperial system in 1824, the units were redefined in terms of the slightly smaller imperial gallon. The older units continued in use in the United States.

William Salthouse was the first merchant vessel to sail with a cargo of merchandise from the British Dominion of Canada to British Colonies of Australia. The ship was lost on 28 November 1841 while attempting to enter Port Phillip Heads en route to Melbourne Harbor. The wreck of William Salthouse has been the site of several maritime archaeological investigations as well as experimental in situ conservation efforts.

The quarter was used as the name of several distinct English units based on ¼ sizes of some base unit.

A firkin is a unit of volume or mass used in several situations. Its etymology is likely to be from the Middle English ferdekyn, probably from the Middle Dutch diminutive of vierde 'fourth'. Firkin also describes a small wooden cask or tub for butter, lard, etc.

A number of units of measurement were used in South Africa to measure quantities like length, mass, capacity, etc. The Imperial system of measurements was made standard in 1922 and the metric system was adopted in 1970.

The Exchequer Standards may refer to the set of official English standards for weights and measures created by Queen Elizabeth I, and in effect from 1588 to 1825, when the Imperial Units system took effect, or to the whole range of English unit standards maintained by the Court of the Exchequer from the 1200s, or to the physical reference standards physically kept at the Exchequer and used as the legal reference until the such responsibility was transferred in the 1860s, after the Imperial system had been established.

References

  1. ↑ Murray, James A. H. Murray; Bradley, Henry; Craigie, W. A.; et al., eds. (1991). The Compact Oxford English Dictionary (Second ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. p. 2061.
  2. 1 2 Staniforth, Mark (1987). "The Casks from the Wreck of the "William Salthouse"". Australian Journal of Historical Archeology. 5: 21–28. JSTOR   29543180.
  3. ↑ Gray, William Forbes (1914). The Poets Laureate of England: Their History and their Odes. Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons. p. 29. ISBN   9780827431805.
  4. ↑ McIntosh, Carey (1998). "Eighteenth-Century English Dictionaries and the Enlightenment". The Yearbook of English Studies. Eighteenth-Century Lexis and Lexicography. 28: 8–9. doi:10.2307/3508753. JSTOR   3508753.
  5. ↑ Eisterhold, John A. (Winter 1973). "Savannah: Lumber Center of the South Atlantic". The Georgia Historical Quarterly. 57 (4): 531. JSTOR   40579943.
  6. ↑ "A New System of Weights and Measures". Biloxi Daily Herald. May 6, 1899. p. 6.
  7. ↑ Ingalls, Walter Renton (July 20, 1917). "Shall Great Britain and America Adopt the Metric System?". Journal of the Royal Society of Arts. 65 (3374): 609. JSTOR   41347389.
  8. ↑ Hardwicke, Robert E. (2012). The Oilman's Barrel. University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN   978-0806143842.
  9. ↑ "[Letters in response to] Over a Barrel". The Wilson Quarterly. 5 (3): 189–190. Summer 1981. JSTOR   40256164.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.