Metrication Board - Prelude To Metrication

Prelude To Metrication

The question of whether or not to convert British trade and industry to metric was the subject of a UK Government White Paper in 1951, itself the result of the Hodgson Committee Report of 1949 which unanimously recommended compulsory metrication and currency decimalisation within ten years. The report said "The real problem facing Great Britain is not whether to adhere either to the Imperial or to the metric system, but to maintain two legal systems or to abolish the Imperial." The report also recommended that any change should be done in concert with the Commonwealth (former Empire) and the USA, that the UK adopt a decimal currency and that the UK and US harmonise their respective definitions of the yard using the metre as a reference.

Although most of the Hodgson Report was rejected at the time as being premature, within a decade and a half changing patterns in British trade meant that in 1963 a poll by the British Standards Institute (BSI) revealed that the majority of its members favoured a transition to the metric system.

Two years later, after taking a poll of its members, the Confederation of British Industry informed the government that they favoured the adoption of the metric system, though some sectors emphasised the need for a voluntary system of adoption. The metrication program in the United Kingdom was to have five phases:

1. Announcement of policy
2. Metrication of the documentation for materials, specification and engineering design
3. Metrication of engineering-related industries
4. Initiation of a national education program in the schools
5. Metrication of the wholesale, retail and consumer industries.