The Library of Spanking Fiction: Wellred Weekly
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Articles
Items of interest regarding all things spanking
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Eric Arthur Wildman: Caning Missionary  Eric Arthur Wildman was born 20th May, 1921. After serving in the Merchant Navy during the Second World War he set up the Corpun Educational Supply Company which specialised in selling a variety of corporal punishment instruments, including canes, straps and tawses, to schools around the country. In what appears to be more of an advert than an item of genuine news the 26 year old Wildman appeared in an 1947 edition of the Daily Mirror newspaper where he claimed to be supplying canes to over 100 schools. An even more bizarre feature in the Mirror later that same year suggested a national shortage of canes for school use and that Wildman was now supplying canes to no fewer than 300 schools including those in far away places such as Uganda, Malaya, Palestine and Persia! It seems there were already a number of opponents of cp in schools around this time and a Committee for the Abolition of Corporal Punishment In Schools had been formed. Wildman, however, was having none of it and formed a counter organisation entitled The National Society For The Retention Of Corporal Punishment In Schools. He also formed the Corpun Educational Organisation Limited. Apart from manufacturing implements of chastisement he also produced some literary material and was editor of a fortnightly review called The Retentionist. His literary output, however, was not of a high quality being filled with the same recurring cliches, anecdotes and spelling mistakes.  It is clear that he had a weakness for publicity and, amongst other things, this led him to place cards on notice-boards all over London advertising his services and urging parents and teachers to contact him for advice and to inspect his canes, birches and straps. He later went further and paraded through the borough wearing a schoolmaster's gown with sandwich board placards bearing such messages as "Abolish the Birch & Crime Increases. Sign the petition and join the crusade to defeat the abolition of Judicial Corporal Punishment" and "Parents, do your children need beating?... If so, etc..."By the late 1940s he seemed to be in full missionary mode and was giving lectures on his principles and techniques at London's Caxton Hall. Apparently these were often attended by both supporters and opponents so would frequently end in disorder. Gervas d'Olbert in his Chastisement Across The Ages describes Wildman's appearance at these meetings as "...deadly serious with the eyes of a fanatic... always arrayed in cap, mortar-board and gown" but that his speeches were "...invariably of the dullest and most monotonous type: content and delivery were alike undistinguished." Over the next few years he published a number of booklets and mimeographed pamphlets including Modern Methods of Home Discipline (1948), Modern Miss Delinquent (1950) and Punishment Posture for Girls (1950). In 1948 Wildman was to be involved in an extraordinary event which would end up being reported in newspapers far and wide including TIME magazine. He was invited to give a lecture concerning his methods of imposing school discipline at Horsley Hall school, a small ultra-progressive co-educational boarding school in Eccleshall, Staffordhsire, with just 24 pupils. No doubt he accepted such an offer with great eagerness viewing it as yet another opportunity to spread the gospel and little suspected he was being lured into a trap devised by the school's progressive 28-year-old headmaster, Robert Copping, who was opposed to any form of corporal punishment.  Getting a dose of his own medicine at Horsley Hall  On 23rd March 1952 Wildman boarded the passenger ship, Queen Mary, at Southampton, with a First Class ticket bound for the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, New York. The purpose of his visit isn't clear but one assumes he was intending to preach the corporal punishment gospel and promote his canes to the USA. Mention of his visit was featured in the September 1952 edition of the American magazine, Pic, where he was shown dishing out a pretend spanking to a stenographer, draped over his knee.In 1953, following the issue of a search warrant under the Obscene Publications Act of 1857, Wildman's premises were subject to a 4 hour raid by police who seized thousands of canes, tawses and birches along with hundreds of pamphlets. Despite this, Wildman continued to sell his pamphlets and a second raid was carried out a couple of months later when yet more literature, 'obscene' photographs and canes were seized. He was subsequently issued with a summons and at court Wildman pleaded guilty to 17 charges of publishing obscene libels. He was fined £500, which he was allowed six months to pay, the alternative being a year in jail. His defending lawyer had suggested "there was no deliberate trading in pornography. Wildman was a man with a kink. Corporal punishment had got control of him. He thought he had a crusade for its retention". However, The Times newspaper reported that Wildman has been running: "...a substantial business in the publication of various obscene pamphlets ... [which]... dealt with the subject of flagellation, especially in regard to young women, and they created an appalling atmosphere of cruelty and sadism."It would appear that following his prosecution Wildman probably ceased producing spanking-related literature and subsequently kept a much lower profile as far as publicity was concerned. He continued to sell his canes and other spanking implements via mail order from home until at least the mid-1970s and later is believed to have worked as a private maths tutor. He died in London, May 1990. 17 comments
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