Metric is a product of the French Revolution, as well as decimal currency like cents. Some decimalization from the French Revolution didn't catch on widely, like gradians for measuring angles or decimal minutes, hours, and weeks. The imperial units were standardized by various monarchies (hence the name).
It's not compatible with their other units. E.g. 1 tesla = 1 Ns/Cm, but imperial uses poundfeet instead of newtons and feet instead of meters. Dimensional analysis with incompatible units is folly.