The Yorkshire School

It’s ten thirty at night; Easter Saturday, 1824. A bell rings; girls in their long nightdresses stand next to their beds; the masters enter the dormitories. The room inspection is thorough; the pupils too are inspected. Spankings are administered as some girls fail to find favour, and one speaks without permission. Leaving behind the threat of dire consequences should the young ladies be caught talking or out of bed before morning, we retire for the evening.

It’s seven in the morning. The bell rings; we gentlemen enter the first dormitory once more. We find the girls still in bed; they’re ordered to their feet and then swiftly made to bend over: the punishment for failing to stand when masters enter a room is short and sharp. They make their bed; it’s not done to a satisfactory standard: further retribution follows. They’re left to wait whilst the next room is similarly inspected: it proves equally disappointing.

The girls are lined up, taken in turn into the washrooms to shower. For some, the supervision is especially thorough: one girl is whipped, quite naked, for failing to dry herself properly. Another’s attitude is deemed insolent: she too feels the cut of the riding crop.

Breakfast is prepared and served by the girls: gruel and water for them, bacon and eggs with juice for the masters. We have been generous, though, permitting them honey with their cereal to celebrate Easter. We are less tolerant of shortcomings, however: one girl is chastised after the table has been cleared for having forgotten to set a jug of milk on the table; another suffers for providing the senior master with a dirty plate.

The first part of the morning is spent on embroidery, allowing the masters to relax and sip their coffee. The girls toil diligently, yet one of their number produces work that is unacceptably poor. She is beaten, as are the others, who appear to derive humour from the paucity of her efforts.

By this point, it is apparent that the standards of conduct at the school are unacceptable. A bundle of rods is brought into the schoolroom; the girls are instructed to make birch rods, for later use, with the girl who has been at the school the longest appointed as monitor to instruct the others. One girl proves allergic to the pollen; she is ordered to stand outside and face the wall, but is caught minutes later looking away: she is brought inside and turned over a master’s lap for punishment.

Reading aloud follows: passages from learned books. Girls stand in front of Mr Jenkins, holding aloft a first edition of Encyclopedia Britannica. He makes them read a page – from “punishment” and “pupil”, through “pure” to “purgatory”. Each time they stumble over the words, he makes them start again. When they’ve finished, he tests them. Spankings inevitably follow, for careless reading and poor concentration.

Mr Simpson follows a similar approach with a biology textbook, yet he also checks the results of a handwriting exercise that the girls are given to complete with pen and ink. Where their transcription is untidy or inaccurate, punishment follows. Mr Jenkins, sending one girl upstairs to his colleague, notices the poor quality of her work; it does not surprise him that, when he next sees her, her face is tear-stained and she is holding her hands in agony.

It is late morning now, and we call the girls together. Before bed the previous evening, they had been given a poem to learn. Poignantly, though they were not told this, the work was by Lord Byron, who had sadly passed away just five days previously. They were called forward in turn to recite it from memory. The first girl made two errors; the second was still less accurate; the third merely burst into tears.

It was clear from their faces that they knew how disappointed we were in them. Indeed, their performance in the recitation reflected our overall impression of their attitude and efforts. Each, we told them, was to be punished in turn. The first received eight hard strokes from each master on her hands with the tawse; the second, a dozen from each on the bare with a rattan flogger. The senior girl was called forward last, and made an example of: two dozen in total with the birch, her bloomers parted to bare her buttocks.

And then they were dismissed… for tight hugs, to recover, and to share their impressions and glee at what had happened.

Later that evening…

Two girls awaited their fate. Jessamine had been sent to us recently by her outraged parents after appearing on the stage. She’d been caught outside the school, in the company of a member of the theatrical troupe. Victoria, the senior girl, held a key to the back door, and had aided her escape. They were brought to the Punishment Room, an occasional and dreaded experience reserved only for very worst offences.

Mr Simpson lectured Jessamine first: on the dangers of meeting her friend; on how we owed a duty to her parents to deter her; on how her actions had led to the other girl being in trouble too. She was ordered to lie face down on the punishment horse; her skirt was lifted, and the leather ties fastened to hold her in place. The whipping from Mr Jenkins, with a heavy, harsh tawse, brought her to tears: he continued on, applying yet more strokes as hard he could. Never before had he strapped a girl so hard.

Victoria’s turn was next. Why, Mr Jenkins wondered, had a senior girl been so foolish as to let the younger pupil out? She’d landed them both in trouble; he would birch her with particular severity. She too was strapped into position face down; her bloomers were untied. No count was kept of the number of fast, furious, full-strength strokes of the spray that she received: Mr Jenkins lost track of the tally at around sixty. And then he walked around her; she was permitted a cold towel to cool her face. It was clear that she thought the flogging was over, until he raised the rod high and administered a repetition of the strokes from the opposite side to their predecessors. Never before had he birched a girl so hard.

It was Mr Simpson who would really ensure their future good conduct, however. Jessamine was called forward and made to lie on her back on the top of the horse. Her skirt was lifted, and she cried aloud as she was birched on the front of her thighs. Victoria followed, sobbing her way through a similar ordeal. Even Mr Jenkins found their ordeals hard to watch; his concern for them was tempered, however, by knowing that the punishments were utterly deserved.

Before it was over… and the two amazing girls were hugged tightly and close.

With such thanks to Mr Simpson (HH) for hosting the event, and for proposing the idea of basing our planned school scene on the historic “Yorkshire Schools” – the strict, austere establishments mad notorious by Dickens’ Dotheboys Hall. Thanks too to Marlowe and Lily, who contributed to the design of the roleplay but were unfortunately unable to join us on the day – we missed you…

And the biggest thanks of all to Louisa (Eliane), Jessamine (Cath) and Victoria (Emma Jane – who’s also posted her account of the school). The three of you were so wonderful – so convincingly as the girls concerned that I was able to inhabit the character of the rather nasty Mr Jenkins completely for the duration. It’s rare for me to be able to stay entirely in role throughout such an extended scene: that I did so – and derived so much from it – is a tribute to your roleplaying abilities and bravery.