Catherine Cranston

Her father, George Cranston, was a baker and pastry maker and, in 1849, the year of her birth, he became proprietor of the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway Chop House and Commercial Lodgings at No.

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.

[6] She set high standards of service, food quality and cleanliness, and her innovation lay in seeing the social need for something more than a restaurant or a simple "tea shop", and in putting equal attention into providing amenities designed in the latest style.

Unlike cafes or tearooms in other cities, there was no intrusive supervision and those having tea had an assortment of scones and cakes to hand, with a discreet notice reminding newcomers to remember the amount consumed.

The architect Sir Edwin Lutyens visited the Buchanan Street tearoom in 1898, finding it "just a little outré", and wrote from there to his wife that "Miss Cranston is now Mrs. Cochrane, a dark, fat wee body with black sparkling luminous eyes, wears a bonnet garnished with roses, and has made a fortune by supplying cheap clean goods in surroundings prompted by the New Art Glasgow School.

and that "It is not the accent of the people, nor the painted houses, nor yet the absence of Highland policemen that makes the Glasgow man in London feel that he is in a foreign town and far from home.

The 'Willow Tearooms' brand has been separated from the building and is now run privately at a location in Buchanan Street adjacent to Miss Cranston's original premises.

[7][12] He was assisted in this by Charles Rennie Mackintosh who designed wall murals in the form of stencilled friezes depicting opposing pairs of elongated female figures surrounded by roses for the ladies' tearoom, the luncheon room and the smokers' gallery.

His fame was spreading, and in 1902 The Studio wrote of "Miss Cranston, whose tea-rooms, designed by Mr. Mackintosh, are reckoned by some of the pilgrims to Glasgow as one of the sights of the city.

"[6][9][15] Next Kate Cranston gave Mackintosh the major commission for an entire building in Sauchiehall Street, again in collaboration with his wife Margaret MacDonald on designs for the interiors.

"[9] Although the Willow Tearooms completed her chain, and remains the most famous of her tea rooms, Kate Cranston carried out several more projects, and Mackintosh provided increasingly innovative designs.

The menu card designed by Margaret MacDonald Mackintosh shows the name for the tearooms, The White Cockade, but makes no visual connection with this reference to Jacobitism.

[9][19][20] In 1916 Kate opened Cranston's Cinema De Luxe in an entertainment complex designed for her by the architect James Miller, occupying the third floor of a six-storey building in Renfield Street, Glasgow.

[21] In 1917 Mackintosh carried out his last commission for Kate Cranston, and indeed one of his last architectural works to be constructed, with the design of an extension of the Willow Tea Rooms into the basement of the building next door to create The Dug Out in a style that anticipated Art Deco.

[citation needed] Miss Cranston's Tearooms on Ingram Street continued in use as catering facilities from 1930 for Cooper's & Co., then in 1950 the rooms came into the ownership of Glasgow City Council and were used for storage and a souvenir shop.

The Glasgow Museums website reports that they are "currently assessing what will be needed to research and preserve the Charles Rennie Mackintosh interiors of the Ingram Street Tearooms for future public display.

In the 1960s a resurgence of interest in Art Nouveau brought him international fame, and the furniture and designs he and his wife created for Kate Cranston are now extremely valuable.

[27] In October 2018, it was announced that Cranston would feature on a design for The Royal Bank of Scotland £20 note to be circulated in 2020, the first woman other than Queen Elizabeth II to be depicted on a banknote of that denomination in that country[28] (images of Nan Shepherd had been on a £5, Mary Somerville and Mary Slessor on a £10 and Elsie Inglis on a £50 in the past,[29] while notes issued by English banks had already featured Elizabeth Fry, Florence Nightingale and Jane Austen).