The Library of Spanking Fiction: Wellred Weekly


Wellred Weekly
Volume 1, Number 2 : November 22, 2011
 
Articles
Items of interest regarding all things spanking

The Birch
by flopsybunny

The Birch Rod
Throughout written history up to the 19th century, the birch rod was the most popular spanking implement in Europe. The birch rod, sometimes simply referred to as the birch, is a bundle of thin leafless twigs bound together to form an implement for the purpose of flagellation. Contrary to the name, a birch rod is not a single rod but a cluster of birch twigs tied together to form a long handle, whilst leaving an open splay of twigs (or withes) at the 'business end' of the implement.

In the past, rods have also been made from other wood including willow, hazel, applewood and broom, but birch twigs are well suited because they are thin and flexible. The birch was also used in the navy, the home, and in schools and prisons as a means of punishment.

In The Navy
In the 1860s, the Royal Navy abandoned the use of the dreaded whip known as the cat o'nine tails, on boy seamen. The ferocious cat was replaced by the birch, with which the wealthy classes were more than familiar, as many of them had been on the receiving end of it during their time at school. In an attempt to standardise the birches in use by the navy, the Admiralty had specimens stored in every major dockyard.

So birching became a punishment favoured by the Navy, and for boys aboard training ships the junior birch was used. The birching was usually done early morning on the lower gun deck. The boys buttocks would be bared then he would be strapped lengthways over a cannon and made to 'kiss the gunners daughter'. The Bosun would be the one who normally carried out the punishments.

A letter to the editor, entitled Corporal Punishment In The Navy, appeared in The Times: London, 13 June 1904. It stated:
"...The birch is reserved for liars, thieves, and offenders against decency and common morality. I have seen it applied (a) to a boy who was habitually filthy, (b) to one whose leisure was given to telling foul stories to his mates, and (c) to a boy who had been grossly cruel to a ship's pet -- a monkey. There was not a man or boy on board who did not think the punishment fitted the crime..."
Later, the Admiralty replaced the birch with a standard Naval Issue rattan cane; supplies of these canes were kept at every dockyard. By all accounts, 12 hard strokes with a rattan cane on a bare bottom hurt far more than the birch.

Use In Schools
J R Honey, states in Tom Brown's Universe, (Millington, 1977) "The birch was part of the standard equipment of the Victorian schoolmaster, as central to the work of teaching as is the textbook or the blackboard of today." The practice of birching was a widely accepted part of schooling.

Eton
Eton is regarded by many as one of the elite private schools in England. More than a third of Britain's prime ministers attended Eton. They include Robert Walpole, William Pitt, William Gladstone, Anthony Eden, Harold Macmillan and David Cameron.

Eton had a certain reputation in days gone by. It was notorious for beating students - so much so that, during the 16th century, Fridays were known as 'flogging day'.

Up until 1964, boys could be subjected to a public birching, where they were hit on their bare buttocks with a birch rod. Pupils were often 'swiped' with the birch for the sin of idleness. A birch rod normaly only ever lasted for just one good birching then needed replacing.

Each part of Eton school used to have its own flogging block. This was a step made from wood on which the youth knelt, bare bottomed and awaiting his punishment. He would have been kept in position by two boys or prefects nominated as 'holders down' - their duties included lifting up his shirt tails and holding him in place throughout the birching.

School fees included half-a-guinea to cover the cost of the birches, irrespective of whether the pupil was actually birched.

Beating boys at Eton was only officially phased out in the 1980s - the last recorded caning taking place in 1984. The Eton Birch is named after this prestigious, and reputedly birch-happy, public school.

Home Use
Birch rods used in the home were usually graded depending on the age of the recipient. Birch rods used on younger miscreants were known as maternal birches, and were around 34 inches long. Generally speaking, the older the miscreant, the larger (and heavier) the birch rod used. Some older wrongdoers might have been disciplined with a rod of around four feet in length.

The severity of each type of rod depends not only on its length and weight but also on the skill of the maker. Ideally, the birch rods should be prepared and used on the same day they are cut from the tree. This is because they can dry out rapidly and quickly become brittle and lose their flexibility. During a birching, bits of twigs will fly all over the place and there will be a lot of cleaning up to be done afterwards! However soaking the twigs in water or brine before use will prevent breaking as well as enhancing flexibility. The brine, being heavily salted water, had a healing antiseptic effect and prevented any infection - but it also made the punishment more severe if the weilder applied more force, because the brine increased the weight of the twigs.

The sensation produced by a birch rod is unlike any other. It can feel surprisingly and pleasurably mild at the outset, but the pain will increase with the number of strokes applied, and will begin to sting like the devil. It can result in striations - numerous red lines criss-crossing the affected area, and may break the surface of the skin.

The Manx Birch
The term judicial birch obviously refers to the severe type in use for court-ordered birchings, especially the Manx hazel birch. The Manx birch was an evil thing consisting of four, four foot long, half inch thick birch rods bound together, and would require four prison officers to hold the offender down. Following their birching with the Manx birch, it took several days before the offender could walk again in comfort and several weeks for the marks to disappear. The Manx birch was thought to be more severe than that of the spray birch because, in effect, several canes were being applied to the bare buttocks with each stroke.

Use Of The Birch In Prisons
Many prisons had various types of furniture specially constructed for the purpose of birchings. Made from wood, these contraptions were known as: a birching donkey or birching pony (referring to the silhouette of an equine); a birching block; and a birching or flogging table - this had two holes drilled, through which the victim's arms were inserted; and once a strap was tied around the offender's middle and their feet secured, there was no escape!

As there were no clearly defined standards for the construction of such devices, prisons and police stations devised and adapted whatever they could so that juvenile and adult offenders alike could be bent over for punishment. Some models also allowed the miscreant to adopt a standing or leaning position. When specific furniture was not used, it was common for the miscreant to be "horsed" on the back of another person. This involved the person to be punished being held by the arms over the back of another person; alternatively the offender could be held on the shoulders of two or three other people.

Judicial Penalty
For judicial use, the dimensions of the birch to be used (overall length, length of handle, diameter of spray and weight etc) were all specified in accordance with the various ages of the miscreants. The smallest birch was used for boys age 10 and under, and a larger, heavier one for boys aged 11 to 15. Older boys and adult men had the somewhat dubious privilege of being punished with the largest and heaviest birch. Such punishments were always administered on the bare buttocks.

Judicial birching in 20th-century Britain was used much more often as a fairly minor punishment for male juveniles, typically for petty crimes, than as a serious penalty for adult men. In the case of juveniles, the birch was much lighter and smaller, and was administered privately by a police officer.

In Britain birching as a judicial penalty was abolished in 1948, although it was retained in prisons until 1962 as a punishment for violent breaches of prison discipline.

The Isle of Man gained some notoriety for continuing to birch young offenders until 1979, when after a lengthy debate the European Court of Human Rights declared birching to be "a cruel and unusual punishment". The birch was also used on offending teenage boys until the mid-1960s on the Channel Islands of Guernsey and Jersey.

Why The Birch Fell Out Of Fashion
The birch was gradually replaced by the rattan cane. The chief reason was attributed to Victorian prudishness; at that time they they felt it was 'improper' to make boys lower their trousers to receive and feel the full effects of the birch, particularly considering that the cane could be administered very effectively without baring the bottom. The fearsome cane could be more than well felt through normal clothing. Another factor was the opening of an increasing number of girls schools. A bare bottom birching was considered far too immodest, but a girl would certainly feel the cut of the rattan cane when applied across her skirted posterior.

Once rattan became easily available, its portability and durability rendered it far superior to the birch for everyday use. Nevertheless, the birch is still appreciated by spankos and there is evidence to suggest it remains in use!

How To Find Spanking Stories Featuring The Birch
If you are a member of the LSF and want to find stories featuring the application of the birch:

1. Make sure you are logged in to the library site
2. Click the Search button
3. From the list of implements on the right of the page, put a check in the box for birch, and then click Search.
 
21 comments:
Seegee said...
You wouldn't want to run into that policeman brandishing that birch! I've only ever been birched once, it was given lightly just to give me an idea, that was all I would ever want!
22 November 2011 08:53
bendover said...
I've never felt one, but I don't want to either. It just looks like it would hurt like heck and then itch like heck about an hour later. Since I'm alergic to 79 out of 100 species of plantlife, I would probably end with with more than birch scratches. :)

Good article, Flopsy.

22 November 2011 18:48
WillyNicks said...
Great, interesting article, flopsybunny.

Seems to me that the power of the birch (in the abstract) is the ritual associated with it: the collection and binding of the twigs, the soaking in brine and so on; all for the purpose of punishing someone. And that's before we even consider the construction of purpose-made furniture for strapping people to!

It surprises me that such a 'historic' and seemingly impractical implement was still in use into the sixties. Enlightening stuff.
23 November 2011 00:26
Alef said...
A very nicely written and well researched essay. In the Scandinavian countries and Russia, the birch rod seems to have remained popular (well, perhaps not with everybody!) much longer than elsewhere, maybe for the simple reason that in these countries birch trees are ubiquitous — you can hardly turn around without seeing one. Rattan, on the other hand, was probably reserved for the upper classes.
23 November 2011 13:09
TheEnglishMaster said...
Thank you for a very clear and informative account - one can understand why canes took over, being less labour intensive, but birches, I suspect, are a more potentially sensual implement!
23 November 2011 21:16
KJM said...
Interesting and informative. For no reason at all I never got interested in birch as an erotic implement, maybe because it isn't easy to find in a city...
24 November 2011 02:53
tyrport said...
You should read the acounts of Winston Churchill's birchings at school. He had a bloody ass almost weekly which is cruel for he was just beginning grade school. Life must have been brutal in those schools.

I heard and would like to confirm that the non punishment use of a birch soaked in water was a safety device for burning coal cinders escaping the heating. Have you heard anything?
24 November 2011 02:57
blimp said...
Excellent informative article, Your Flopsyness. I read somewhere that the cane replaced the birch in schools and reformatories because of a moral backlash at the thought of all those bare bottoms. This took place towards the end of Queen Victoria's reign. It was thought the cane unlike the birch could be used on a clothed posterior rather than a bared one. The irony being that the cane was often in those days used on the bare and of course it is a far more painful implement of correction than the birch!! So those poor nineteenth century scholars paid a painful price for their elders moral scruples.
24 November 2011 20:36
IanD said...
Flopsy, a very well written and researched article, thank you.
25 November 2011 04:24
sugarmouse said...
A very interesting and well written article, but I HAVE to ask ... have you ever tried it?
26 November 2011 21:25
Justinian74 said...
Unexpectedly I found myself in a situation last week that enabled me to taste the effects of a genuine birching. Not from the many pseudo birches now peddled but a genuine betula rod made from the fine budded ends of this notorious tree well soaked. The rod was perhaps 2.5 ft long thus something between a domestic and a judicial rod. It was handled by an enthusiastic professional lady. I am considered a reasonably strong taker but this was something else. Somewhere after the first dozen brisk strokes I ;lost it', and could hear myself crying out as the cumulative effect built up. This is quite different from ordinary canings and I am glad to have had this insight.into the past.
29 November 2011 17:45
islandcarol said...
Wow!
I feel like an expert on the birch after reading your lovely article. I enjoyed the background history that led to its use. It seems the 1980 was not that long ago. These classy schools do not give up their traditions easily!

I also appreciate the directions on how to use the search engine to locate stories that utilize this wicked innocent little tree.
Great article!
30 November 2011 22:35
barretthunter said...
I'm sure any Old Etonians on the site would be horrified to read that Eton "is regarded by many as one of the elite public schools in England". I don't think even its many enemies would question that it is one of that elite, and it is mostly regarded as the top one in terms of fame and the wordly success of its pupils. However, as I found arriving at Cambridge from a state school, the recent veterans of other "public" (that is, private) schools generally loathe Etonians and perceive them as arrogant and believing the world belongs to them - which to some extent it does. Despite this, Eton has produced rebels and conscience-stricken talents (George Orwell was both). Whether the punishment regime has anything to do with Etonian self-assurance and ruthlessness, I don't know.
5 December 2011 17:00
turk said...
Flopsy, I was checking out old articles and found this one, tremendous research and presentation. I found it very interesting, some information I was aware of some new. I am not sure which is the worst, birch or cane, I reflect that I am glad we had the paddle. Thanks.
28 November 2012 18:27
maryjo24 said...
Thank you for a well-researched and interesting article.
28 February 2013 07:54
sixofthebest said...
Whenever so delightful a birchrod is being used, I enjoy the swish of this corporal punishment implement when it lands on a naughty womans bare bottom. The swish, plus the "Ooohs", and "Ouchs", from the pain that emerges from the female's lips, makes beautiful music, for my ears.
17 August 2013 19:48
CarolinaPaddler said...
This was a very detailed account of the birch and its use. I recall in the Marilyn Monroe movie she was visiting Eton and was told the boys were caned at the school. The director mentioned that the cane had taken the place of the birch.
28 January 2019 16:03
galt54 said...
Lots of useful (?) information, Flopsy. Well done.
7 June 2019 12:35
Sharkie said...
A good historical review.
29 August 2019 22:14
PeterJohn said...
Thank you for a very informative article. I recall reading a piece in a newspaper where a well known person admitted that three strokes of the birch on the Isle of Man stopped his wayward life and got him back on track. He confirmed what you said about the severity by admitting he was carried to a bed and stayed face down for a couple of days before he could walk.

Glad my school only used the cane!
2 April 2020 18:03
Brosse6 said...
I visited the Isle of Man on holiday back in 1976 when they still used the birch. At that time gang warfare and football hooliganism was rife on the mainland UK. Holidaying on the Isle of Man that year there were youths from Glasgow, Liverpool, Belfast and Manchester which were all well known trouble spots at the time. Yet I didn't see one incident of yobs misbehaving.

They had a birch on display in Castletown museum, and yes it was a ferocious looking weapon.
11 April 2020 16:31

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