The Winchester Bushel
The corn measure Britain abolished and America kept.
Origin
Named for the physical standards held at Winchester since the Saxon period, given statutory form under Henry VII and William III, and replaced by the imperial bushel in 1824.
The catch
Britain abolished it in 1824. The United States, having become independent in the meantime, simply carried on using it. So the American bushel today is the older, more English measure, and the imperial one is the innovation.
The Winchester standards were among the oldest physical measures in England, kept in the city that served as the Saxon capital, and successive statutes confirmed rather than replaced them. The 1824 Act swept them away in favour of the imperial bushel of 2,219.36 cubic inches, defined from the imperial gallon. American grain markets still quote the Winchester figure, which means a bushel of wheat in Chicago and a bushel of wheat in a British history book are three per cent apart.