Portal:Scotland/Selected article/Week 45, 2007

Catherine Cranston (27 May 1849 – 18 April 1934), widely known as Kate Cranston or Miss Cranston, was a leading figure in the development of the social phenomenon of tea rooms. She is nowadays chiefly remembered as a major patron of Charles Rennie Mackintosh and Margaret MacDonald in Glasgow, Scotland, but the name of Miss Cranston's Tea Rooms lives on in reminiscences of Glasgow in its heyday.

Like other cities in the United Kingdom in the 19th century Glasgow was then a centre of the temperance movement which sought an alternative to male-centred pubs. Tea had previously been a luxury for the rich, but from the 1830s it was promoted as an alternative to alcoholic drinks, and many new cafés and coffee houses were opened, catering more for ordinary people. However it was not until the 1880s that tea rooms and tea shops became popular and fashionable.