Mother’s Day (31st March) from Studio William
At Studio William, we can’t imagine anything more delightful than drawing on our oldest, deepest, home grown traditions and combining them with the best of modern design in order to honour those dearest to us. Let’s face it, what could be closer to the ethos and vision behind Studio William than drawing from the best of the past to improve our experience of the present?
Flowers and chocolates may be considered the proper gifts for Mother’s Day by some, but in line with Mothering Sunday’s origins, we still associate this special time with proper eating and drinking and particularly with ‘high tea’. As we write this, people up and down the country will be booking the table for a mother or grandmother or else planning their own spread at home.
Is this a kind of inherited memory of the kind of food that featured in the celebration from the 1500’s on? Who knows. What is certain is that the family gathering with cakes, particularly Simnel* cake, (baked on the morning of the holiday), as a feature of the festivities formed a central feature of the holiday – and they still do today.
If you plan to host, or help to host, a Mother’s Day high tea yourself remember the old saying that, ‘God is in the details’. The pleasure of ‘Refreshment Sunday’ can be greatly diminished or greatly enhanced, not only by the environment and setting, but by the cutlery which delivers the food from plate to cup or plate to mouth. We recommend our tea spoons, taster spoons and pastry forks for guaranteed ‘enhancement’ of the meal.
Some Mother’s Day History
Mother’s Day, the day when we celebrate mothers, grandmothers and mother figures in general, is celebrated in many countries on the 31st March this year. In some it is even a public holiday, though sadly not in the UK or USA!
In most of the world this day of appreciation can trace its roots to two American women, Julia Ward Howe and Anna Jarvis who each established a mother’s day tradition – one in Boston and the other in Albion, Michigan. It was Jarvis, however, who persuaded President Woodrow Wilson to sign Mother’s Day into existence in 1914. And this is where the modern, yearly celebration of motherhood began.
Except in the United Kingdom, where the tradition is much older and more nuanced. The British origins of the holiday are perceptible in the uniquely British designation, ‘Mothering Sunday’ as well as in the date on which it always falls.
Mothering Sunday’ began in the 1500’s as a purely religious observance, when people returned to the church in which they had been baptised or which they attended as children, (their ‘mother church, hence the name). It fell on the fourth Sunday of Lent, exactly three weeks before Easter – and still does. On this day, families came together or were reunited, as people returned to the towns and villages of their birth for a special religious service. The strict fast of Lent was partly relaxed and more substantial fare was enjoyed for this day alone. (Mothering Sunday was also known as ‘Refreshment Sunday’!)
For many, the journey back was a kind of pilgrimage and ‘going-mothering’ became quite a holiday event. Over time, it became customary for domestic servants to be given the day off to visit their families as well as attend the traditional service. As they would usually bring gifts of food for their mothers and perhaps hand me downs for younger siblings, the giving of Mother’s Day gifts became part of the tradition.
‘Mothering Sunday’ fell out of fashion in the late 19th century and it might have disappeared altogether but for the efforts, in the early 20th century, of a certain Constance Adelaide Smith, a vicar’s daughter. She was inspired by Anna Jarvis to rekindle the separate and distinct British tradition but with a greater emphasis on motherhood itself. She collected, recorded and published the traditions surrounding Mothering Sunday, from the practice of daughters visiting their mothers to the gifts of Simnel cakes or wafer cakes. In this way, she hoped to persuade both the public and the politicians that there was already an ancient tradition of honouring mothers of all kinds on the 4th Sunday in Lent and it would only need a little official recognition to revive and flourish.
And, of course, she succeeded.
While we no longer observe, (how many even remember?), the religious aspect of the holiday, Mother’s Day has become a permanent fixture. And there remain some distinctly British aspects of the festival, rooted in its origins, which have somehow kept their hold on the ways we choose to celebrate it.
However you decide to honour this occasion, we hope you have enjoyed this look behind the scenes at our particularly British version of Mother’s Day and we wish you and yours a very happy Mother’s Day!
A Simnel cake is a light fruit cake covered with a layer of marzipan and with a layer of marzipan baked into the middle of the cake. Traditionally, Simnel cakes are decorated with 11 or 12 balls of marzipan, representing the 11 disciples and, sometimes, Jesus Christ. One legend says that the cake was named after Lambert Simnel who worked in the kitchens of Henry VII of England sometime around the year 1500. Find out more here.