“In the 1950s ‘The rules were rigid, the discipline harsh. I was present when a 15-year-old boy… was caned on the bare buttocks by an 18-year-old… a nice bloke who I met years later… 6 strokes – so hard the skin split and bled. He had bruising for 6 weeks – His sin? – he […]

“Leadership at Scotch has meant many things. It has always meant enforcing rules. It meant asserting authority, including the prefects’ own authority (in cases where boys were caned solely for challenging a prefect).” “For all their free use of corporal punishment, those nineteenth-century teachers were in a way more gentle, more affectionate towards the boys, […]

Given our inexperience (and possibly blood lust), I think that the Prefects’ meetings were conducted in a fair and reasonably balanced way, allowing the usual assumption that ‘if you weren’t guilty, you wouldn’t have been here in the first place!!’ If found ‘guilty’ (and most were), the penalty was discussed and agreed by all the […]

Prefects’ Meetings lasted until around 1970. Throughout that time they penalised smoking, swearing, leaving school in school hours, and wearing uniform incorrectly. In the 1930s, at least, they intruded into the academic areas, punishing boys who copied others’ work or allowed work to be copied. Even boys smoking in their own homes, or in mufti, […]

“Prefects’ privileges were their room, their badge and their exemption from detentions and punishments. They also had the privilege of power. At its most formal, in a Prefects’ Meeting, they judged and punished fellow students. The Captain chaired the meeting and administered the strokes (cuts) of the cane. The meeting also imposed lesser penalties like […]

As early as the 1870s, corporal punishment had its critics. The Government wanted to limit its use in the state system, but Scotch said this would weaken teachers’ authority. As for alternative punishments, like detention after school hours, to deprive boys of outdoor exercise ‘is far more injurious to health, and, consequently, more truly cruel […]

It was an era that accepted a level of physical violence between teacher and pupil. A good deal of whacking and pummeling had no reason other than the doing of it. When the school later moved to Hawthorn, the buildings were not ready and two grades were in marquees. Littlejohn would walk outside the tents […]

‘They say corporal punishment scars a boy – which is a lot of cock! We treated it as a great joke – those bloody detentions really hurt!’ Morrison concurred: a public rebuke ‘was more stinging than a flogging’.’ For boarders, caning was common. One in 1929 was caned 24 times in one term; once the […]

He put ‘the boys through conjugating verbs and declining nouns and those who failed too ignominiously received a few strokes with the taws on their open hands. There was no newfangled nonsense about old Dr Morrison.’ The taws was a Scottish leather strap slit at the ends. Gordon ‘Gunner’ Owen (staff 1946-74) ended a boy’s […]