Scottish Blog

Meal Monday was a holiday unique to Scottish universities.

Meal Monday was a tradition observed the four ancient universities of Scotland (University of St. Andrews, University of Glasgow, University of Aberdeen and the University of Edinburgh). As university culture has changed greatly since the inception of such institutions, it is difficult to understand how different the lifestyle of a student would have been. The concept of the Meal Monday is an indicator of such differences.

Meal Monday came about because of the student’s need for sustenance and fire fuel. Those stuffing at any of the ancient universities were expected to provide for themselves entirely, which included all food and anything else needed to survive. Predominantly it can be said that those studying did not originally come from the towns in which they were studying, as such, a journey to “restock” in their originally home towns would normally take at least a day. Meal Monday was facilitated so that on that day students were able to travel for more stocks and not have any lectures which they would miss.

The Meal Monday tradition has been in place at the University of Edinburgh as recently as 1895, with Meal Monday occurring on the first Monday of every month. In the present day (and since 1896) the tradition has been celebrated on the second Monday of every February.