The History of Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day is a day of the year when mothers throughout the world are honoured, although exactly how this is done differs from country to country. Here in the UK, the exact date of the celebration actually changes each and every year due to it being linked with the Easter holiday. It typically falls on the fourth Sunday of lent.

16th Century

During the period of lent, people throughout the UK would go to a mass service at the main, or mother church, in their local area. Most of the time, it was the church where they were baptised or failing that it was their closest cathedral. Those people that did do this were said to be going ‘a mothering’. It still remains somewhat unclear if this term came before the observing of Mothering Sunday.

In later years, Mothering Sunday was a day when domestic servants were allowed a day off from work in order to go and visit their mother church. This was also true for children and young people, who were also given the day off. Whilst at church, they would pick wild flowers. Over time, what started off as a religious event, eventually became Mother Sunday where people would give gifts to their mothers.

20th Century

During the early part of the 20th century, a lady by the name of Anna Jarvis who lived in the United States of America (USA) hosted a memorial to honour not only her own mother but all mothers based at a church in West Virginia. This was the first ever official observation of Mother’s Day and as a result of this, the International Mother’s Day Shrine at the church where it took place has been designated as an historic landmark.

Inspired by the actions of Anna Jarvis, a lady called Constance Penswick Smith created her own Mothering Sunday Movement in the UK, which culminated in 1921 with her writing a book that suggested the festival should be revived. Its revival came through the help of Canadian and American soldiers that were based in the UK during the second world war. The commercial profitability of this celebration was quickly pounced upon by shops and retailers in the country and so did what they could to really push it during the 1950s.

In both the UK and Ireland, Mother’s Day began to be celebrated on the very same day as Mothering Sunday (the fourth Sunday during lent). Because of this, the two celebrations have actually become mixed up, with many people thinking that they are the same celebration. Most other countries around the world celebrate Mother’s Day in the month of May rather than Mothering Sunday.

To this day, the celebration of Mother’s Day remains highly commercialised with people giving large and elaborate gifts to their mother’s. An example of this are mothers day gift hampers which come in a range of different shapes, sizes, and prices to suit all mother’s right across the whole of the UK.