Daily Mail, London, 4 November 1907, p.6

A Principal Exonerated.

The adjourned summons against Mr. William Gannon, M.A., principal of the Woolwich Polytechnic, charging him with having excessively caned two of his pupils was dismissed at Woolwich Police Court. Giving evidence, Mr. Gannon said this was only the second case during the three and a half years he had been principal of the Woolwich Polytechnic in which he had found it necessary to administer corporal punishment. The parent of a boy forwarded a letter of complaint that his son was being bullied, and after seeing the boy who was said he had been bullied and those against whom the accusation was made, he came to the conclusion that the two boys (Couchman and Berry) had been acting in a bullying way to a smaller boy, and that what they had done called for punishment. After consultation with the senior master, he administered six strokes of the cane to each boy. Having in mind what was usual as punishment when he was a boy and what he had seen administered as punishment to other boys, he did not think this was excessive. Mr. Hutton, giving his decision, said it was not for him to decide whether there was bullying or not, but he would say there was insufficient evidence before him, if he had to determine the question, and that a little further inquiry might have been made before the punishment was inflicted. Mr. Gannon was honest in his belief that bullying was going on, and he could not say that the punishment inflicted was immoderate, brutal, or cruel.