The Metre Convention was signed on May 20, 1875 with the mission “to assure the international unification and perfection of the metric system” (today the International System of Units SI). The Convention continues to fulfill this mission, notably with the redefinition of the SI at the 26th General Conference on Weights and Measures in November 2018. A key role in the drawing up of the Convention was played by Wilhelm Foerster, at the time Director of the German Weights and Measures Service and Director of the Berlin Observatory. Foerster and Adolph Hirsch, Director of the Neuchatel Observatory, were the principal architects of the Convention and both contributed very much to the early years of its operation, Foerster as President of the International Committee for Weights and Measures and Hirsch as Secretary. In this article, the origin of the Convention, the creation of the International Bureau of Weights and Measures established at Sevres, and the many contributions of Wilhelm Foerster are outlined.
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