I’d imagine that the headmaster would do the proper paperwork after administering a severe, formal six whacks for some grievous offence, but the geography teacher would be more likely to “forget” to record that he had given someone one on the hand for larking around in his lesson. In most state schools, the cane (or […]

That said, the society of teachers opposed to corporal punishment did complain (sensibly, I think) that although schools and education boards sometimes had rules about how many times a child could be hit, very few had rules about how hard a child could be hit. Most schools probably had a tradition or a rule about […]

Another thing that suggested itself to me was in the case of Australian schools are we to assume that British schools were very similar and thus in looking at the evidence from the more freely available Australian documents are we in fact seeing a close reflection of the school discipline at home in England? Or […]

I have never viewed any punishment books from my high school but know that most if not all punishments were recorded. The vast majority of the punishments were one, two or perhaps three strokes. Four was less common and six less common still. I have reason to believe that most canings were “of the best”. […]

Why are punishment books from UK schools hard to find? Because although they are not covered by the official secrets act they seem often to be treated as though they are! Sometimes there is a 50 year embargo on releasing them, and they often become buried in inaccessible archives. Why is so much material from […]

You raise an interesting issue, but clearly it isn’t the one you meant to raise! You are indeed correct, in my experience at least, in saying that punishment books never show ‘six of the best’. This I think is because punishment books (at least those I’ve seen) show the number of strokes administered. They don’t […]

I had a morbid fascination for this subject, don’t ask me why but it’s there as I guess it is with everyone else on here. With this “interest” in mind I’ve looked up punishment books online by trying punishment books into Google images. I have found maybe four or five examples of these (if there […]

After reading Rebecca’s account,I feel it has to an extent. I had often wondered whether girls who went to school at around the time I did were subject to the cane. I never experienced it myself and it wasn’t used a great deal at my high schools in New Zealand and Australia in the mid […]