Oil painting of Chisholm (b 1809), aged 86. The Standard Weights & Measures Department of the Board of Trade was created in 1866, and Chisholm, a civil servant, was the first and only Warden of the Standards from 1867 to 1877. As such, he was responsible for erecting the standard measures in Trafalgar Square, London. Chisholm supported the idea of a metric system in England, but this was rejected by parliament. His daughter Grace (1868-1944) was a mathematician.
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