Tom Brown was supposed to be about Dr Arnold’s time at Rugby in the early 19th Century. The cane wasn’t introduced until around 1880. The reason it replaced the birch was purely because the prudish Victorians felt it was ‘improper’ to make boys lower their trousers and the cane could be administered without that need. It was considered just as painful across the trousers as the birch was across the bare backside and in no way was it brought in to lesson the severity of corporal punishment in schools. Unhappily for many boys, the cane was often still applied across the bare buttocks even up to the 1930’s and possibly beyond that time.
Tom Brown’s schooldays2
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