Growth of English Industry and Commerce during the Early and Middle Ages (1890; 4th ed., 1905) and Growth of English Industry and Commerce in Modern Times (1882; 3rd ed., 1903) are the standard works of reference on the industrial history of England. He also wrote The Use and Abuse of Money (1891); Alien Immigration (1897); Western Civilization in its Economic Aspect in Ancient Times (1898), and in Modern Times (1900), and The Rise and Decline of Free Trade (1905). Dr Cunningham’s eminence as an economic historian gave special importance to his attitude as one of the leading supporters of Mr Chamberlain from 1903 onwards in criticizing the English free-trade policy and advocating tariff reform.
CUP (in O.E. cuppe; generally taken to be from Late Lat.
cuppa, a variant of Lat. cupa, a cask, cf. Gr. κύπελλον), a drinking
vessel, usually in the form of a half a sphere, with or without
a foot or handles. The footless type with a single handle is
preserved in the ordinary tea-cup. The cup on a stem with a
base is the usual form taken by the cup as used in the celebration
of the eucharist, to which the name “chalice” (Lat. calix,
Gr. κύλιξ, a goblet) is generally given. (See Drinking Vessels
and Plate.)
CUPAR, a royal, municipal and police burgh, and capital of
the county of Fifeshire, Scotland, 11 m. W. by S. of St Andrews
by the North British railway. Pop. (1901) 4511. It is situated
on the left bank of the Eden, in the east of the Howe (Hollow)
of Fife, and is sometimes written Cupar-Fife to distinguish it
from Coupar-Angus in Perthshire. Among the chief buildings
are the town hall, county buildings, corn exchange, Duncan
Institute, cottage hospital, Union Street Hall and the Bell-Baxter
school. The school, formerly called the Madras Academy,
was originally endowed (1832) by Dr Bell, founder of the
Madras system of education, but, having been enriched at a
later date by a bequest of Sir David Baxter (1873), it was afterwards
called the Bell-Baxter school. The Mercat Cross stands
at “the Cross” in the main street, where it was set up in 1897,
having been removed from Hilltarvit, an eminence in the
neighbourhood of Cupar, on the western slope of which, at
Garliebank, the truce was signed between Mary of Guise and
the lords of the Congregation. In the parish, but at a distance
from the town, are the Fife and Kinross asylum and the Adamson
institute, a holiday home for poor children from Leith.
The town received its charter in 1356 from David II., and,
being situated between Falkland and St Andrews, was constantly
visited by Scottish sovereigns, James VI. holding his
court there for some time in 1583. The site of the 12th-century
castle, one of the strongholds of the Macduffs, thanes or earls
of Fife, is occupied by a public school. On the esplanade in
front of Macduff Castle, still called the Playfield, took place
in 1552 one of the first recorded performances of Sir David Lindsay’s
Ane Satyre of the Three Estaits (1540); his Tragedy of the
Cardinal (1547), referring to the murder of Beaton, being also
performed there. Sir David sat in the Scottish parliament as
commissioner for Cupar, his place, the Mount, being within
3 m. north-west of the town. Lord Chancellor Campbell
(1799–1861) was a native of Cupar.
Cupar is an agricultural and legal centre. Its chief industry is the manufacture of linen, and tanning is carried on. At Cupar Muir, 1½ m. to the west, there are a sandstone quarry and brick works. The town has also some repute for the quality of its printing, both in black and colour. This was largely due to the Tullis press, which produced about the beginning of the 19th century editions of Virgil, Horace and other classical writers, under the recension of Professor John Hunter of St Andrews, which were highly esteemed for the accuracy of their typography. Cupar belongs to the St Andrews district group of burghs for returning one member to parliament, the other constituents being Crail, the two Anstruthers, Kilrenny, Pittenweem and St Andrews.
There are several interesting places within a few miles. To the north-east is the parish of Dairsie, where one of the few parliaments that ever met in Fife assembled in 1335. The castle in which the senate sat was also the residence for a period of Archbishop Spottiswood, who founded the parish church in 1621. Two miles and a half north of Dairsie is situated Kilmany, which was the first charge of Thomas Chalmers. He was ordained to it in May 1803 and held it for twelve years. David Hackston, the Covenanter, who was a passive assister at the assassination of Archbishop Sharp, belonged to this parish, his place being named Rathillet. After his execution at Edinburgh (1680) one of his hands was buried at Cupar, where a monument inscription records the circumstances of his death. To the west of Kilmany lies Creich, where Alexander Henderson (1583–1646), the Covenanting divine and diplomatist, and John Sage (1652–1711), the non-juring archbishop of Glasgow, were born. Henderson took a keen interest in education and gave the school at Creich a small endowment. Some 3 m. to the south-west of Cupar is Cults, where Sir David Wilkie, the painter, was born. His father was minister of the parish, and Pitlessie, the fair of which provided the artist with the subject of the first picture in which he showed distinct promise, lies within a mile of the manse. In the sandstone of Dura Den, a ravine on Ceres Burn, 2½ m. E. of Cupar, have been found great quantities of fossils of ganoid fishes. The rocks belong to the Upper Old Red Sandstone.
CUPBOARD, a fixed or movable closet usually with shelves.
As the name suggests, it is a descendant of the credence or
buffet, the characteristic of which was a series of open shelves
for the reception of drinking vessels and table requisites. After
the word lost its original meaning—and down to the end of the
16th century we still find the expression “on the cupboard”—this
piece of furniture was, as it to some extent remains, movable,
but it is now most frequently a fixture designed to fill a corner
or recess. Throughout the 18th century the cupboard was a
distinguished domestic institution, and the housewife found her
chief joy in accumulating cupboards full of china, glass and
preserves. With the exception of a very few examples of fine
ecclesiastical cupboards which partook chiefly of the nature
of the armoire in that they were intended for the storage of
vestments, the so-called court-cupboard is perhaps the oldest
form of the contrivance. The derivation of the expression is
somewhat obscure, but it is generally taken to refer to the
French word court, short. This particular type was much used
from the Elizabethan to the end of the Carolinian period. It
was really a sideboard with small square doors below, and a
recessed superstructure supported upon balusters. Of these
many examples remain. Less frequent is the livery cupboard,
the meaning of which may be best explained by the following
quotation from Spenser’s Account of the State of Ireland:—“What
livery is we by common use in England know well
enough, namely, that it is an allowance of horse-meat, as they
commonly use the word stabling, as to keep horses at livery;
the which word I guess is derived of livering or delivering forth
their nightly food; so in great houses the livery is said to be
served up for all night—that is, their evening allowance for
drink.” The livery cupboard appears usually to have been
placed in bedrooms, so that a supply of food and drink was
readily available when a very long interval separated the last
meal of the evening from the first in the morning. The livery
cupboard was often small enough to stand upon a sideboard or
cabinet, and had an open front with a series of turned balusters.
It was often used in churches to contain the loaves of bread
doled out to poor persons under the terms of ancient charities.
They were then called dole cupboards; there are two large and
excellent examples in St Alban’s Abbey. The butter, or bread
and cheese cupboard, was a more ordinary form, with the back
and sides bored with holes, sometimes in a geometrical pattern,
for the admission of air to the food within. The corner cupboard,
which is in many ways the most pleasing and artistic form of this
piece of furniture, originated in the 18th century, which as we
have seen was the golden age of the cupboard. It was often of
oak, but more frequently of mahogany, and had either a solid
or a glass front. The older solid-fronted pieces are fixed to the
wall half-way up, but those of the somewhat more modern type,
in which there is much glass, usually have a wooden base with
glazed superstructure. Most corner cupboards are attractive
