A novel rheometer based on the U-tube technique of Saunders and Ward has been developed to determine the shear moduli of very weak gels and foams. The instrument is fully automatic and operates in both static and oscillatory modes. The change of the shear modulus, with the time, was monitored in three series of samples to illustrate the performance of the instrument. The first series comprised gelatinized maize starch aqueous suspensions ranging in starch concentration from 6% to 12%. The second was a series of gelatine aqueous solutions ranging in gelatine content from 2% to 12%. The third was two commercial samples of shaving foam. The results indicated that the instrument is particularly suitable for the study of the gelation mechanism in very weak gels as well as for the study of the stability of foams in relation to time.