The Library of Spanking Fiction: Wellred Weekly


Wellred Weekly
Volume 2, Number 1 : March 21, 2013
 
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Corporal Punishment in Schoolboy Fiction
by Arthur James Blimp

"Oh, young boys, if your eyes ever read these pages, pause and beware. The knowledge of evil is ruin, and the continuance in it is moral death. That little matter — that beginning of evil — it will be like the snowflake detached by the breath of air from the mountain-top, which, as it rushes down, gains size and strength and impetus, till it has swollen to the mighty and irresistible avalanche that overwhelms garden and field and village in a chaos of undistinguishable death.

Kibroth-Hattaavah! Many and many a young Englishman has perished there! Many and many a happy English boy, the jewel of his mother's heart — brave and beautiful and strong — lies buried there. Very pale their shadows rise before us — the shadows of our young brothers who have sinned and suffered. From the sea and the sod, from foreign graves and English churchyards, they start up and throng around us in the paleness of their fall. May every schoolboy who reads this page be warned by the waving of their wasted hands, from that burning marle of passion where they found nothing but shame and ruin, polluted affections, and an early grave."

That extract, on the perils of masturbation, is from one of the most famous Victorian school stories, the Reverend F.W. Farrar's Eric or Little by Little. Farrar was one of the many reverend gentlemen who turned their hands to writing boys' school stories. Experts in the field of the Victorian school story will tell you that Eric is a far more influential tale than Tom Brown's Schooldays. I can never work out why Thomas Hughes' famous work is so popular, although it has provided us with one of the great heroes of English fiction in the school bully, Flashman, immortalised by George MacDonald Frazer in his excellent Flashman books.

Tom Brown may be a fictional character but Hughes actually went to Rugby and studied under the great Dr Arnold. There is little in the way of corporal punishment in the book and what does occur happens off-stage so to speak. Happily for us aficionados there was rather more in the 1971 BBC series starring Iain Cuthbertson if I remember rightly. In fact the episode where the head boy, Brooke, canes a weeping Flashman whilst berating him for cowardice was strong fare for a Sunday lunchtime audience.


Farrar's tale of Eric has not always met with universal approval and the novelist Eric Ambler said it was "the only book I ever wanted to lose". I think that is being a little hard on it as it deals with some complex ideas such as the corruption of innocence. The 'Little by Little' of the title. Later issues of the book were censored as there was rather too much romantic feelings between the boys for some tastes.

To Farrar nothing is trivial, he never says boys will be boys but sees their words and deeds as being of everlasting importance. Naturally the punishments must be significant too.

"Now, sir," said he to Brigson, "I shall flog you."

Corporal punishment was avoided with the bigger boys, and Brigson had never undergone it before. At the first stroke he writhed and yelled; at the second he retreated, twisting like a serpent, and blubbering like a baby; at the third he flung himself on his knees, and, as the strokes fell fast, clasped Mr. Rose's arm, and implored and besought for mercy.

"Miserable coward," said Mr. Rose, throwing into the word such ringing scorn that no one who heard it ever forgot it. He indignantly shook the boy off, and caned him till he rolled on the floor, losing every particle of self-control, and calling out, "The devil - the devil - the devil!" ("invoking his patron saint," as Wildney maliciously observed).

One way in which a Victorian school story will usually differ from those written in later years is a certain coyness about which part of the anatomy the instrument of correction is applied to. Often it is applied to the hand or as in the case of Kipling's Stalky and Co, the shoulders. However, if the reader is informed that it was given across the lower back he can be fairly sure it was applied across the buttocks. In Ernest Fairfield, Two terms at St Andrews it is applied across the shoulders with brutal force. This was another book written by a reverend gentleman, namely the Rev. Arthur Noel Malan. It is a moral tale for children with more than its fair share of whippings. Most of the Reverend Malan's tales were fairly light hearted if rather cruel in nature and serialised in the pages of the Boy's Own. This, his first novel published in 1888, was somewhat darker. Its theme is chose your friends wisely, something young Ernest fails to do.

"He instantly stood round, and received across his shoulders twenty cuts with the ground-ash as hard as the mighty Armstrong could let them in. Ernest bore the chastisement without a sound."

I had better admit that I still read a lot of schoolboy fiction, at my age too. Of course my mental age might be slightly lower than my actual age. I still read the Greyfriars tales just as I did as a child. In fact if I were allowed one book on my desert island it would certainly be Harry Wharton's Rebellion. It makes me laugh even though I have read it a dozen times at least.


One could almost imagine being a pupil at Greyfriars. It has a sort of idyllic quality which even its fiercest critic, George Orwell, noted. Aside from the insipid Jennings stories the first non Bunter school story I read was one of John Finnemore's Teddy Lester stories. Frank Richards never described a caning with as much attention to detail as Finnemore did. They were reasonably well written too although not nearly as enticing as the Greyfriars tales. There was no Harry Wharton, my schoolboy hero, to admire, however the characters are well drawn and he captures something of the brutality of a boys only boarding school. From Teddy Lester in the Fifth this short extract typical of the well described canings which occur with great regularity:

"The senior prefect ran his eye over the crowd and his glance fell on his fag, Bridges.

"Bridges," said Newton, "go to my study and fetch the cane which stands in the corner near the bookcase."

Bridges departed joyfully, and the onlookers grinned at each other. They were going to see the bully and the sneak get just what such fellows deserved.

By this time Teddy had released Stanton, and the latter had joined his chum Cleaver, and both were pushing for front places in the crowd.

"I shall flog you publicly in the hopes that a little decent behaviour can be knocked into you," remarked Newton; and the pair of boobies looked on the ground and appeared as foolish as any two boys ever did.

"Long," said Newton, "take out that chair into the corridor" - and the senior prefect pointed to a chair which had stood beside the table now overturned - "and place yourself over it."

Long was greeted with a howl of delight as he marched slowly and unwillingly into the corridor with the chair of execution.

Slowly and reluctantly over went Long and received a really terrific caning. Newton as a rule was not a hard hitter, but this time his contempt for the sneaking pair was so great that he put out his strength and laid into Long in such a style as he had never been seen to display before.

"My hat," chuckled Cleaver to his friend, "he is getting it hot for basting you, Billy! Long won't want to sit down in a hurry without a cushion about a foot thick under him. Now for old Foxy."

And Cleaver chuckled with unholy joy as Long limped back into his study, and Foxy went over the chair of justice and waited for the cane to descend.

Down it came, and six good thumping cuts made Foxy writhe like an eel, and when he straightened himself up he was purple with the effort he had made to restrain his groans."

Breathless stuff and not in the least bit atypical of John Finnemore's Teddy Lester tales. For many years the author was a headmaster so undoubtedly that helped him achieve a certain authenticity. Desmond Coke, author of The Bending of a Twig was another schoolmaster who regularly included several well described and usually quite brutal canings in each book he wrote. In the preface to one of his novels he refers to criticisms of his fondness for corporal punishment and says, "an occasional sound thrashing is a healthy moral tonic for boys."
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