Mel Williams, Visitor Services
I found something in the Whangārei Museum this week that continues to weigh on my mind. It is a beautiful treasure that once offered a welcome service to the community but comes with a message that hasn’t stood the test of time.
The Salter Public Weighing Scale was manufactured by G.Salter & Co from West Bromwich in the United Kingdom. It was then distributed in New Zealand by the Australasian Automatic Weighing Machine Company. Started by brothers Richard and William Salter, the company began by making springs in 1760. G.Salter & Co was passed down through many generations and went on to make a vast array of products that utilised springs, including music boxes, typewriters and scales.
Machines like the Salter Public Weighing Scale once sat in train stations around the world, as well as post offices, shopping centres and other public locations. For a penny, anyone could stand on the machine and measure their weight.
The machine itself is made of cast iron. It is ornately decorated with raised floral panels, pillars framing the face of the scale and a star above it. Near the face is a coin slot and the number 34. On the base of the scale where people have stood it reads “Everitts Patent” and just above that is a panel with a knot and arrow that says “G.Salter & Co, West Bromwich”. Another panel just below the face reads “Australasian Automatic Weighing Machine Co Ld. On the face of the scale are red and blue numbers that tell us it could once measure up to 20 stone, although it is no longer functioning and now sits permanantly at 1 stone 8 pounds.
The scale itself is beautiful, but the paper beneath the glass in the centre of the face, while acceptable in the past, is a little concerning today.
Headed, “All British Manufacturer”, it is an average weight chart. According to this chart, the average weight for a 6ft tall male is 12 stone 10lb. This is the equivilent of 80.7kgs. The ideal weight of a 5ft tall woman is listed as 7 stone 7lb which is 47.6kgs. A 10 year old boy, 4 stone 13lb, and a 10 year old girl, 4 stone 6lb, which equal 31.2kgs and 28.1kgs respectively.
My concern isn’t necessarily the numbers, although some seem very low, but with the fact that they are listed right on the face of the scale. Everyone is different. Weight is not only affected by the amount of food consumed, but also genetics and family history, race or ethnicity, culture and even by a lack of sleep. Kids are worried about their weight at a much younger age these days. They compare themselves to each other, to the air-brushed models in magazines, to the celebrities they see on TV and online, but it’s not about weight, it’s about being healthy.
I remember as a child, jumping on the public scales in a shopping centre and for some reason, it was always exciting. But like I tell my kids now, it doesn’t matter what number comes up, because the most important thing is to be healthy and to be happy, which is something a physical scale could never measure.
