1775, John Ash, The New and Complete Dictionary of the English Language, volume 1, London: Edward and Charles Dilly in the Poultry; and R. Baldwin in Pater-Noster Row, →OCLC, page 23:
A hundred, a thousand, few, many, are to be considered as collective nouns, and distinguished as such, by the singular article.
2008, Ron Cowan, The Teacher's Grammar of English with Answers[1]:
British English tends more than American English to have plural agreement with collective nouns.
