Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(school or facetious) one’s father; esp. as the pater; thus grandpater, grandfather.

1728		A. Ramsay Monk and Miller’s Wife (1808) 4: A youth sprung frae a gentle pater, / Bred at St Andrew's atma-mater .
c.1800		‘The Fornicator’ in Farmer Merry Songs and Ballads (1897) V 300: My rogish boy, his mother’s joy, / An darling of his pater.
1864		B. Hemyng Eton School Days 15: Your pater told me to look after you.
1876		H.J. Byron Wrinkles Act I: Yes, as a pater he’s inestimable.
1882		‘F. Anstey’ Vice Versa (1931) 63: Skidmore’s pater is only a clerk.
1888		A. Levy Reuben Sachs (2001) 17: I suppose everyone’s going to grandpater’s feed tomorrow.
1893		K. Mackay Out Back 127: The pater just gave me your note.
1900		Boy’s Own Paper 20 Oct. 38: He was the Grandpater’s clerk.
1903		A. Binstead Pitcher in Paradise 236: She was permitted to spend the night at Isabelle’s home [...] which ‘mater’ and ‘pater’ believed to be at Clap-ham and Clap-ton respectively.
1904		Sun. Times (Perth) 21 Feb. 1/1: The Hielan horror would drive the pater to poison.
1912		A. Brazil Fourth Form Friendship 227: ‘What an abominable swindle! It’ll take half our next term's cash. I don’t believe the pater will stand it for us’.
1913		Sport (Adelaide) 3 May 12/2: They Say [...] That What’s up, Joe, don’t see you so often in Todd street. Does mater and pater object.
1914		‘Ian Hay’ Lighter Side of School Life 200: You might mention this casually to the pater.
1925		S. Lewis Arrowsmith 434: He desired as greatly as any Pater to ‘burn with a hard gem-like flame’.
1930		N. Gale ‘The Ball’ in Messrs Bat and Ball 26: Telegraphs to sons and Paters / Earls, policemen, Dukes and waiters.
1935		(con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Judgement Day in Studs Lonigan (1936) 624: My pater’s sobbing the blues, too, about dough.
1945		(con. 1919) R. Westerby Mad in Pursuit 30: Don’t call me ‘pater’ [...] I don’t like it. ‘Dad’ used to be good enough for you – why isn’t it now?
1957		(con. WWII) ‘Weldon Hill’ Onionhead (1958) 30: Back with pater and mater the fifty servants.
1958		Willans & Searle Complete Molesworth (1985) 10: His pater is a general.
1961		‘Frank Richards’ Billy Bunter at Butlins 2: ‘It’s from the pater,’ he said.
1976		H. Leonard Time Was (1981) Act II: It seems like only yesterday that the pater took us up to town for the old Queen’s diamond jubilee.
1987		(con. 1930s) L. Redmond Emerald Square 114: ‘Filthy lucre’ the Greyfriars chaps contemptuously called it, but this was the Liberties; nobody around here had a ‘pater’ who casually gave you a pound.
1993		I. Welsh Trainspotting 251: Nothing really pater. Oh, did I mention I’m antibody positive? It’s very fashionable now.
2005		B. Hare Urban Grimshaw 28: The pater, in his mid-sixties, had singularly failed to move with the times.