The Spanking Writers

The “Victorian Villains” book I wrote about last time, has yilded another interesting paragraph on prison punishments:

11 January 1872. The punishment of flogging with cat-o’-nine-tails was inflicted in Newcastle Gaol this morning, upon prisoner named John Smith. He was convicted… of a garotte robbery in Newgate Street, and was sentenced to four years penal servitude, and also to receive eighteen cuts with the cat-o’-nine-tails. … The instrument employed on this occasion was a regulation “cat”, having been expressly sent from the Home Office for the purpose.

There’s something sweetly provincial about this. “Oh no, our quiet prison has a real villain to deal with, but we don’t have the means! Write to London and ask them to send a proper cat-o’-nine-tails!”

I leafed through an interesting book in a gift shop: “Victorian Villains: Prisoners from Newcastle Gaol 1871-1873″ by Barry Redfern. It’s a thin volume, but, opened at random, it gave some nice food for my fantasies.

…for the year 1855 there is a very interesting note on the 175 “other punishments” used that year. All but two were shower baths, which, according to the Governor, formed a “very efficacious punishment which he could scarcely do without.” The exceptions were used in “two instances of gross misconduct by two females violently shouting, calling out from their dormitories, and disturbing the whole prison, when a headpiece of muzzle was placed upon the prisoners, which effectually prevents them from shouting but allows them to respire freely.”

I was delighted to discover that disciplinary showers, which Abel is so fond of, are actually an authentic prison punishment. I wish the prison records had more detail about how a “shower bath” was administered. Was it a private affair, between a prisoner and her guard, or would several prisoners be showered at once? Did it have to do with washing, or simply thoroughly drenching the offender? Was there any scrubbing, and if so, who did it?

With the records of punishments being so sparse, however, I’m sure we can make up the relevant details ourselves.

Matlock Bath, in Derbyshire, is a very strange little place. Developed in the 1800s, it became famous as a spa town after Queen Victoria visited in 1831 – and the town appears to have changed little since, save for the appearance of a quite astounding number of fish and chip shops. The local tourist board would doubtless describe it as ‘evocative of another era’ – the usual shorthand for ‘slightly run-down and very dated’, albeit still a pleasant place in which to pass an hour or two.

We visited a little while back with a group of kinky friends, and popped into the once-grand Hydro – now home to an aquarium and holographic exhibition. As the attraction’s site notes, “Reminders of its former splendor can be seen in the fine stone staircase, the drinking fountain and huge iron girders spanning the thermal pool.” (The slot machines, from which we won the grand total of £2 for a 40p stake, are presumably a more recent addition).

Said fine staircase features a rather lovely cat:

But it’s this type of cat that really caught our eye:

The display helpfully explained the types of knot needed to make the implement (“but don’t try this at home, children”), with a history of its use. I hadn’t known, for example, that floggings aboard ship always took place at the same time – 11am. And have you ever wondered why the tails on some cats are knotted, whilst most are not? It seems that ‘a standard cat o’nine tails had plain rope tails, but if the punishment was for stealing from a fellow shipmate, each tail was knotted at the end and this instrument was known as a “thieves’ cat”‘.

Quite what it’s doing in a glass case on the staircase in an old spa is anyone’s guess – were whippings one of the treatments on offer? Were the maids accompanying their Victorian employers to the resort despatched to the Hydro for punishment if they misbehaved? Or, perhaps, were the current owners simply hoping to attract kinky visitors like our group?

Vasco Da Gama was a cruel, cruel man, according to author K.G. Jayne’s description of a 1524 expedition to Goa:

Before his flotilla put to sea, he had posted at the foot of the masts an order that any woman detected on board after the ships had passed Belem would be publicly flogged. If she were married, her husband would be sent home in irons ; if a slave, she would be sold and the proceeds given to charity ; while any captain wilfully conceahng such a stowaway would be cashiered.

The fleet arrived at Mozambique on the 14th of August, and halted for the flagship to repair a sprung yardarm. As it lay hove-to, three women stowaways were denounced to the Viceroy, and placed under arrest…

The three unfortunate women who had been detected in his ships were sentenced to be flogged through the streets while the town-crier intoned: “The Justice of the King our Lord ! It orders these women to be flogged because they had no fear of his justice, and crossed over to India despite his prohibition.”

Subsequent colonialists were rather keener for their overseas representatives to enjoy female company, it seems, according to another article:

It was much later that single virgin Dutch girls were dispatched to Cochin… Such ships bringing in Dutch virgins were called maiden ships. Eligible virgins were recruited from orphanages in Netherlands. They were then made available to higher ranked officials…

Punishments for misconduct were still strict, though, both aboard ship on the long voyage from Europe and from the girls’ new husbands. Or, at least, I assume they still adhered to at least some of da Gama’s principles, the article in question sadly neglecting to discuss the disciplinary arrangements.

I so wished I’d had £251 to spare back in December, to buy this wonderful collection of papers on eBay:

Look closely and you’ll see the phrase “Reformatory School”, for – in the words of the seller – the item comprised:

Small group of 5 documents/papers dated 1855 concerning poor Catherine Regan aged 13, who was convicted of stealing at August sessions at Liverpool in 1854. She is admitted to Birmingham Reformatory School

1. Detailed 3 page admission form sets out her sad past: her crime is pardoned conditional on her residence at Birmingham Reformatory School.

2. Detailed 11 page 8vo letter in support from Rev Thomas Carter 18 Jan 1855 of Liverpool Reformatory: Carter was a leading light in the Victorian reformatory school movement.

3. Folio 4 page ms conditional pardon signed at head by [Queen] Victoria & inside by [Prime Minister] Palmerston.

4. Ms copy of pardon

5. Telegram from Carter to B’ham solicitor

It’s all described as “an interesting insight into the workings of the Victorian legal system”. That it also has so much potential to form the basis of a wonderful scene was overlooked – but perhaps not by the buyer who paid £250, as Cath (who spotted the item in the first place) and I watched enviously from the sidelines.

Where spanking implements are concerned, I consider myself sufficiently well-educated. I thought, until recently, that I knew every instrument of spanking worth knowing about, at least among what the Western civilisation had to offer.

That was until Mija discovered the “palmer”, which was a medieval education aid. It’s a “stick with a round, flattened head with which to slap students palms.” So, a sort of paddle, but for the hand! I want one.

I was particularly fascinated to find that it’s also called “palmeta” in Spanish and “palmatoria” in Portuguese, which just shows you how international spanking implements were in medieval times.

Excuse me while I picture myself as a medieval young woman who disguises herself as a boy in order to take calligraphy lessons. The master is armed with a palmer, which has a wicked sting, but when I hand out my hand for punishment, my eyes must remain dry. All the boys are looking on to see if I’ll cry from this chastisement. I mustn’t cry; I mustn’t.

An evocative photo caught my eye whilst googling free-to-use images for a work presentation the other day. (You know how it is: you start off hunting for pictures of ‘businesspeople in meetings’, and your fingers accidentally type ‘public flogging’):

The photograph comes from a 1931 book on entitled ‘Bygone Punishments’ (of which we actually own an earlier copy, dating from 1899, without the illustration in question). The commentary explains that we’re looking at the “Stocks and whiping-post, Aldbury, from a photo by A. Whitford Anderson, Esq., Watford”:

“A half-timbered house, probably Tudor, beside a pond; in the foreground are wooden stocks, with the somewhat unevenly placed holes just visible, and one post higher so as to be used as a whipping post… Today Aldbury is part of the Borough of Dacorum. The stocks and whipping-post are still there, but not as complete.”

Now, I’ve seen lots of photos of whipping posts – but never one that’s so evocative of the era in which they were actually put to use. I can just picture a maid, tied to the post, looking out over the duck pond as she was lashed in front of the watching crowd for stealing butter from her master’s kitchen.

The prominence of the apparatus, bang in the centre of the village, also got me thinking. For in a small place like that, it would be quite impossible for the young lass not to have to walk past the scene of her thrashing on an almost-daily basis – the memories and the sense of shame lasting long after her marks had faded.

A rather fascinating account came to light recently on a blog from the island of Orkney:

The punishment of Jean Seatter on 9 March 1697 caused a lot of excitement in Kirkwall. Business stopped, and crowds gathered around the Tolbooth, surging forward to catch a glimpse of the prisoner being led from the damp cells.

Jean, a tall young woman with fair hair, was escorted by the magistrates. Her punishment began when she was taken to the rampart of the Brig at about 11 o’clock and stripped to her shift. She received three lashes over her shoulders, with the cord or tow. Three more lashes were inflicted at the Mercat Cross, then a further three at the ‘head of the town’, followed by banishment from Orkney. If anyone harboured her, the fine was 40 shillings for every night she spent under their roof. Jean’s crime was that of theft.

She was a servant with the Bailie Moncrieff, at a time of great hunger and famine, when many in Orkney were starving. She stole from her employer a small quantity of bere meal, and more seriously, ‘did cut down and steal away’ 27 pieces of beef which had been hanging in the larder. She attempted to hide the meat whilst the household was in church, but was discovered.

Jean pled for mercy, saying that desperation had made her steal to feed her family, but no leniency was shown and the full punishment was carried out.

A lot of excitement, they say? Why, surely people aren’t interested in watching the administration of corporal punishment to attractive young women? What damned perverts…

The authorities in Hong Kong held a rather interesting-sounding exhibition back in 2006 “to mark the decommissioning of 160-year-old Victoria Prison, Hong Kong’s first jail”.

Apparently, “department officers dressed in historic uniforms [showed] the changes in attire over the years” from the former Prisons Department, which “was renamed the Correctional Services Department in 1982″.

I’m rather wondering which uniform was used by the punishment officers…

Visitors were also able to inspect “records of corporal punishment as ordered by judges from 1946 to 1977″, as well as the prison’s rather ferocious-looking cat-o’-nine tails:

I think the young ladies in my previous post a little while back about colonial days got off rather lightly with a caning…

Look what Cath gave me for Christmas:

The caption at the foot of the print reveals that the staircase in question is the entrance to the Birching Tower at Rugby school.

They had a birching tower?

Now my imagination’s working overtime to conjure up an image of the room to which the stairs would lead. I’m picturing   something old, large, with wood panelling adorning the walls – empty save for a small table and chair in the corner and the whipping block in the centre. How those girls who’ve misbehaved since the school went co-ed must have trembled as they nervously made their way up those stairs and cried as they came back down after their punishment…