STANDARDS DEPARTMENT. A department of the English Board of Trade, having the custody of the imperial stand ards of weights and measures. As far back as can be traced, these were in charge of the chamberlains of the exchequer. This office was abolished in 1826, but the custody of the standards remained attached to an officer in the exchequer (q.v.) until that de partment was abolished in 1866. Meanwhile, in pursuance of recommendations of Standards Commissions of 1841 and and a House of Commons committee of 1862, the Standards of Weights, Measures and Coinage Act, 1866, was passed. This act created a special department of the Board of Trade, called the "Standard Weights and Measures Department." The Weights and Measures Act of 1878 made the office more strictly a depart ment of the Board of Trade.
The functions of the standards department include the custody of the imperial standards, the periodical comparison of these with their parliamentary copies and the verification and re-verification of local standards and scalebeams for local authorities and of any standards submitted by other bodies in this country or by any colonies or foreign countries. The types of apparatus accepted for
verification include standard weights, measures, weighing and measuring instruments, gas-measuring standards and apparatus for determining the flash-point of petroleum. Under the Weights and Measures Act 1904, and the Gas Regulation Act, 1920, the de partment is charged with the duties of examining and certifying candidates nominated by local authorities for appointment as in spectors of weights and measures and inspectors of gas meters respectively; the making of regulations with regard to the veri fication and stamping of weights, measures and instruments for use in trade, the tests to be applied, the limits to be allowed and the conditions under which stamps are to be cancelled; and the checking of novel apparatus with reference to fraud.
There are also standards departments under the charge of ex perienced scientists in Berlin, Leningrad, Paris, Vienna, Rome, Madrid, Washington and elsewhere. For the United States Bureau of Standards see STANDARDS, NATIONAL BUREAU OF.