Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a general intensifier; usu. ...of a thrashing, ...of a row.

1855		C. Kingsley Westward Ho III 297: Spoil sports! The father of all manners of troubles on earth, be they noxious trade of croakers!
1893		H. Lawson ‘Bill, the Ventriloquial Rooster’ in Roderick (1972) 144: The game-rooster turned on him, and gave him the father of a hiding [...] and my father caught me [...] and he gave me the step-father of a hiding.
1895		S. MacManus Leadin’ Road to Donegal n.p.: For three fardins I would take it from ye an’ give ye the father an’ mother of a good soun’ blaichin’ [EDD].
1900		Bulletin (Sydney) 17 Mar. 11/2: Arming himself with the fire irons he fled down stairs, fell over the cat and finished the last round on his ear. Bursting into the kitchen he discovered the presiding female on her knees in the act of receiving ‘a father of a bating’ from some person unknown.
1903		J. Furphy Such is Life 242: It would be a Christian act to save Folkestone from the father of a batin’.
1910		Bulletin (Sydney) 8 Dec. 14/3: [H]e has not been known to raise his hand against man, woman or child till the afternoon when he met jovial Dr. Peabody in the street, dragged him from his buggy, and there, in the sight of the whole township, gave the medical gentleman the father and mother of a hiding.
1912		Bulletin (Sydney) 21 Nov. 16/1: A teamster [...] had given a bull-camel the father of a hiding one afternoon.
1918		K.F. Purdon Dinny on the Doorstep 214: Not that Brigit didn’t resent her bruises as well as the torn-out locks of hair, rent from her young head during the course of what she described to Dinny as ‘the father and mother of a row!’.
1922		Joyce Ulysses 305: - Myler dusted the floor with him. Heenan and Sayers was only a bloody fool to do it. Handed him the father and mother of a beating.
1926		‘Sapper’ Final Count 851: Getting ready, I don’t mind telling you [...] for the father and mother of scraps.
1939		J. Cary Mister Johnson (1952) 81: Oh my God, my dear bloody yamhead, what the father and mother of hell is seven and twopence from fifteen and a tanner?
1947		D. Davin For the Rest of Our Lives 110: Can’t they bloody well see there’s the father and mother of a counter-attack going to come down on Bel Hamed?
1965		F.J. Hardy Yarns of Billy Borker 80: Oi took one over the noine and woke up with a mother and a father of a hangover.
1967		J. Wynnum I’m a Jack, All Right 32: I want to be in one piece so I can give you the father of a bloody hiding.
1968		S. Gore Holy Smoke 52: Gorblimey O’Reilly! Here’s the father and mother of a storm blowin’.
1990		I. Rankin Hide and Seek (1998) 43: I’ve got the mother and father of a headache.
1996		J. Cameron It Was An Accident 93: It was the super de luxe extra fucking mama and papa of all carwashes.
1999		Indep. Rev. 9 Oct. 8: BBC’s The Cops provoked the mother and father of all rows.
2003		McGill Reed Dict. of N.Z. Sl. 137: mother and father of The ultimate.