School corporal punishment of old

Oh, this is just lovely. Some kind soul, while compiling a history of Royal Grammar School in High Wycombe has seen fit to include a chapter on “RGS and corporal punishment”.

It includes such lovely things as this anecdote:

In one notable incident that must have been in the early 1940’s [the Headmaster] was part of the team in a Staff v. Old Boys match. The pupils were obliged to spectate. It was a wet day and, as fate would have it, Mr Tucker came down face first in a huge patch of mud. The boys’ reaction was predictable. They howled with delight and no doubt some less than sympathetic comments were made. Mr Tucker’s failed to see the funny side and the next day he caned the whole school.

This reminds me of a boys v. staff basketball match at my old school, during the course of which the universally hated maths teacher took a ball in the eye, and was sporting the most fantastic black eye for the next week. There wasn’t much sympathy for him, either. No universal canings, though.

Back to High Wycombe, though, where prefects also had the right to use corporal punishment, which they recorded in a book later found behind a cupboard. There, the senior prefect had written:

Redgate, Justice and Bolton were brought in by Ives for ragging on their way home from school as they were going down Amersham Hill. This was considered serious as it would bring discredit upon the school. The worst offenders, Bolton and Redgate were given three strokes while Justice received two.

Mmm, it reads like poetry. What’s “ragging”, though?

6 thoughts on “School corporal punishment of old

  • 28 August, 2011 at 8:06 am
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    ragging means playing the fool, messing around.

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  • 28 August, 2011 at 10:01 am
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    It would of course be a travesty if Justice was unfairly treated. Poor boy – what a gift to school masters.

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  • 30 August, 2011 at 1:53 am
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    He caned the whole school?! What endurance! What an arm! Surely such a teacher, however hated, should command respect on the playing field, if nowhere else.

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  • 2 September, 2011 at 6:04 pm
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    Delicious! Caning the whole school must have taken a while, surely. Were they summoned one by one out of class, do you think, or did everyone have to spend the day in assembly watching the others get their due? Pity the poor boy who had to go last!

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  • 2 September, 2011 at 6:06 pm
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    I’m having lots of fun puzzling out the logistics. :)

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  • 2 September, 2011 at 7:36 pm
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    Back in the dim dark ages when I attended a convent school – I guess I was around 7 or 8 at the time – all our class (around 40 girls IIRC) were punished.

    I don’t remember why, and there may have been more girls than just our class. It was lunchtime (that’s recess for you US peeps) so we were out in the courtyard. This was a large enclosed space about the size of a tennis court with a border of about 5 feet or so around. On one side there was a long low concrete bench.

    I’m guessing that maybe we were being too rowdy. For whatever reason we were all told to sit on the concrete bench. We were scolded…

    Then a nun with a ruler and another nun to keep her company (maybe a lay teacher as well?) worked her way down therow of girls. Each of us in turn had to stand and hold out our hands. The standard punishment was three on each hand – again, my memory fails me, but I imagine that is what we would have received.

    The strokes were never brutal – stinging rather than anything else. My abiding memory is the excitement of seeing so many other girls getting it.

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