Scotch saw itself as training leaders. The disappearance of prefects’ power to impose caning was part of a wider shift in perceptions of leadership, away from leadership imposed by fear and punishment, and towards a leadership of persuasion and example, leadership modes that Scotch boys might eventually exercise out in industry or commerce or the […]

From 1961 the prefects discerned a new crime: General Attitude, or GA. In Australian law, a state of mind is not usually in itself an offence, and though Prefects’ Meetings punished boys for GA, they usually spelt out its manifestations in the culprit’s dress (about which rules did exist) or apathy in activities like sport […]

  During the 1960s new ideas crept into the thinking even of the prefects. They punished boys for crimes not previously recorded, like setting a poor example to younger boys. They caned boys for having too many detentions. They punished boys for insolence to masters (one boy shouted ‘Bill’ through a ventilator into a classroom). […]

Caning by staff ended in 1988 with the departure of Campbell Stewart (Year 8 Group Master 1984-88). On the Hill, caning ceased around 1990. Long before, the Prefects’ Meeting had expired. There was non in 1973 or 1974, for ‘All smokers and the like were dealt with by the School Captain and the prefect(s) concerned’. […]

Among the prefects, doubts grew. John McCaughey (1964) refused to be party to a caning, and Hamish Ewing (1967), present at one, was horrified. Finlay Macrae (Captain 1967) feels he caned ‘rather gingerly’. Andy Mackay’s boarding house captain ‘was trying to hit my backside but I bet he couldn’t hit a par 3 to save […]

A thoughtful Captain like David Mason (1966) believed that the Prefects’ Meeting would be accepted if ‘it functions with the right intentions and in the right spirit’/ The prefects must be dignified, and refrain from sarcasm or jokes in the presence of the offender. Nor should they take ‘any delight in the actual infliction of […]

The prefects’ claim to rule boys’ lives outside school, and their savage punishment of ordinary social behaviour like smoking, began in the 1960s to be questioned. Doug Eager (Captain 1963) increasingly caned boys for disrespect to school officers. A letter in Satura, entitled ‘Pres and Queues’, mocked school officers’ privilege in the tuckshop to go […]

In 1963 Scotch caned a fifth former (Year 11) for smoking away from the school and not in school clothes. Most caning in the early 1960s was for smoking for which four strokes was the usual penalty. This was heavier than Nicholson’s caning back in 1936. The aim was both to punish and to change […]

Card-playing and gambling in general reached the same point as smoking: we can see that they happened because they were the subject of jokes, and yet officially boys were punished for indulging. In 1961 a boy was caned for crimes including gambling.” “Healey’s impetus at first was to asset control rather than to tackle revolt, […]

“A welcome was also generously extended to the new Housemaster, Mr Thompson (‘Thommo’) who had his bed ‘short-sheeted plus a liberal application of tooth-paste here and there’. ‘Bunny’ Lappin, the Housemaster ‘nearly wore his cane out whacking both innocent and guilty.’” “What is startling about smoking is that when Scotch caught boy smokers it punished […]