Metrication Board

The Metrication Board was a non-departmental public body that existed in the United Kingdom to promote and co-ordinate metrication within the country. It was set up in 1969, four years after the metrication programme was announced, and wound down in 1981.

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 programme in the United Kingdom was to have five phases:

In March 1966 the [Parliamentary] Standing Joint Committee on Metrication was appointed and on 26 July 1968, when accepting the committee's report, the government announced that:

The Metrication Board was set up with a mandate to "consult, advise, inform, stimulate and coordinate". Its mandate specifically excluded a campaigning role. The board held its first meeting in May 1969 under the chairmanship of Lord Ritchie-Calder when eight committees were set up to deal with the most important sectors of British Industry:,

By the time the board was set up, much of the groundwork, especially rewriting of many British Standards using metric units had been done and many of the industries that stood to benefit from metrication had already metricated, or had a metrication programme in progress.

Traditionally the British Government had imposed little regulation on British industry – standards were usually defined by the industry itself, often in conjunction with the British Standards Institution. Legislation relating to units of measure were normally directed at trade with industry being allowed to develop its own standards.

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