I can understand how some members find my posts hard to believe, when
dealing with cases before they were alive. Certainly when it does
not seem the norm. I have a few cases here that were reported in the
papers. A good library will have these on microfilm or can get it
if you wish to check. I hope you will see these posts and realise
that things, while seeming strange now, were not at the time.

=============================================

"An extraordinary story was told in the Grimsby Childrens Court yesterday,
when two twelve year old boys, Horarace Cox and Michael Brannan, were
charged with stealing a cycle lamp........
The Stipendiary said it was a boys offence and should award a boys
punishment....six strokes of the birch."
source....Eastern Morning News, Hull, Yorkshire 16th September 1911

This punishment was either carried out in the room at the back of
the court or at the police station and was administered to the bare
buttocks.

==========================================================
"A 12 year old boy who pleaded guilty to 12 charges of entering and
theft, and a 13 year old who admitted ten similar charges. were each
ordered six stroke of the birch, and a 12 year old also concerned
in several similar charges was ordered four strokes."

source...London Evening News 7 April 1937

As was the custom at the time for young offenders this was administered
on the bottom which again was bare.

========================================================
"The father of the two boys each ordered a maximum sentence of six
strokes of the birch at the Manchester County Juvenile Court yesterday
wants the Home Secretary to order a public inquiry......

The boys were taken to the police station where their 18 year old
brother witnessed it"...tried to intervene, but was prevented by police officers. The
punishment was extremely severe and the police compelled the boys
to walk home immediately afterwards.....

"Both boys have been sick this morning and the younger one seemed
too poorly to get up."


source....Evening News, London 11th July 1947.

If some members find my accounts of giving a few strokes on the bare
bottom to boys to believe, I shoukld think you will find the fact
that a 10 year old was ordered by a court to be birched six times
in 1947 impossible. Check it if you like. It is true.

Another account exists, which describes the way the boys were required
to take the punishment and have it on the bare bottom and the marks
and state it left them in.

============================================================

"A schoolmaster, Gordon Frank Dennis, gave all 37 boys in his class
four strokes of the cane because one of them defied him.
And he was RIGHT in caning them , a court ruled yesterday....we consider
he acted reasonably.

source Daily Mirror, London 6th November 1954

=========================================================
Some think I was a heavy caner on this site. I know Lees Court was
abuse but how about this for the number of canings given in a school
much smaller than mine

1966...............3006
1967................2199
1968....1189
1969......809
1970......739
1971......779

source Times Educational Supplement.....10th May 1974
======================================================
I could go on and post press reports of cases that have come to court where teachers have been in state employment and caned bare. Indeed STOPP even found such cases and that was at a time when all cp was being questioned.

I dare say that like me, you find certainly the birching accounts
hard to believe, just like you find some of mine. You have the facts
and source to check. Their are hundreds of cases in the small local
papers, that never get national attention. I will
bore you with them, but hope this shows that while sometimes things
are hard to believe they are true. Like my posts, it does not mean
in 1947 boys all over the country were being ordered to be birched
by the court. However one has to accept that it did take place.

I have the clipping somewhere, but as recent as 1990 a pe teacher
was taken to court . This was in a private school. Boys were playing
about in the changing room, some were dressed others in the nude.
He decided to slipper all 30 boys and in "fairness" made them all
undress and then proceeded to give two whacks to every boy on his
bare bottom. The case was dismissed. Incredible but true. If I can
find it I will put the report on the site, but am going away in three
weeks so may not have much time

I hope you have found these cases, which you can check very easily
interesting and that just because they are not the norm, think they
are not true.

No doubt like my posts, you will try to dismiss these as somehow being false. I just wonder it another very learned expert will suddenly appear to dispell these.


George.

George,

The cases you quote under the title 'Press Cuttings' appear entirely genuine to me.

I can confirm that it was quite normal for a judicial birching to be applied to the naked buttocks.

I can also confirm that many teachers and Headteachers made extensive (and often excessive) use of the cane and that it was rare for society to bat an eyelid at even the most extreme levels of violence when it took place under the umbrella of officialdom.

But what I CANNOT confirm is that there was a state school in England during the 20th Cenbtury where bare bottom caning was the norm.

And I also cannot confirm that you were ever a Headmaster, a teacher or that you ever did anything to a boy's bare bottom - except perhaps look at it and dream of having the authority to smack it.

Come on, man - if you wish to save your rapidly diminishing credibility, identify the schools at which you claim to have worked and please STOP trying to cover your fantasies with a smoke screen of irrelevant snippets unrelated to the matter in hand !

Your reply was as expected. You cannot deny the facts so belittle them. Judicial birching in 1947 was state authorised. If this was done then bare, you cannot make the case that no bare caning took place in school.What about some of the chuch funded schools that have come to light. Do not forget these in many cases qualified at state schools. Lees Court was state run but look ofat the canings, yet I am being accused or doubted by the number of canings I gave.

Dulwich was private, but we know what went on their in the 1960's. That only came to light as it was a well known person that started the case.

You say I am making a smoke screen. No. You are the one in the smoke. You just cannot accept the facts that it did, or even may have taken place. You have to be right. You are infact saying that anybody, on any site that was at state schools and received any form of punishment on the bare bottom is lying. Also you are twisting what IO said in my posting of details. Not all, infact it was limited as to the number of bare canings that I gave in the private school from 1969 to 1980. Read what I wrote about those years in my EM to you. True it was the norm in the state school, a junior all boys school.

Its not me that is lying or clouding the issue but you.You are asking a question, I have told you why I will not give the exact location, you accept it in one post then complain in another.

George

George said "Judicial birching in 1947 was state authorised. If this was done then bare, you cannot make the case that no bare caning took place in school."

I'm sorry, George. I'm flummoxed. Can you explain this to me?

George,

I fear your credibility is collapsing further with every posting you make.

Identify your schools or become a laughing stock.

I was making a link. Judicial birching, as it was ordered by the court did mean it was an official punishment. This was done bare and took place in 1947. What I was saying is, that if this was allowed in 1947 how can a certain member denounce outright that the cane was not applied to the bare bottom in state schools years before this. The connection being that if the state was inmflicting such painful punishment on a ten year old for a fairly minor offence, then is it not conceivable that the cane was used bare in some schools.

My point is that few would believe a ten year old would be birched as late as this by court order, yet he was. I cannot see how given this a member can say that no bare bottom caning took place in state schools.It may not have been reported as it was not "outstanding" but that does not mean it did not take place

George

George,

You say that a punishment carried out by order of a court is likely to be carried out in state schools?

So when courts were sentencing people to death, were state schools hanging 18-yr-olds for failing their A-levels?

Go to bed, George.

Of course not. What I am saying is that I doubt if the majority of members knew birching was carried out this late and on boys as young as ten. What I am saying, as you well know is that just because you did not know about it, that does not mean it did not happen.


George

I said . . . go to bed!

I must say I find it very strange tht the two main attackers of me are both posting at nearly 1am in the morning, certainly as one expressed surprise when I posted at gone midnight.

Come on. You have been rumbled.


George

There's nothing unusual about being up and about after midnight when one's in good health and only a few decades old.

It is, however, very unusual indeed when one's alledgedly pushing ninety and has suffered from ill-health all one's life.

I have to say that for someone who was too frail to go and fight Hitler in his twenties, you've got a hell of a lot of energy in your late eighties, George.

Just what, exactly, do this link and George's posts on this thread prove? This link is to the Institute of Education (U of L) and refers to the existence of 108 boxes of files, one poster, and one 'bundle' of something archived by STOPP. The information is, inconveniently, available only to academic researchers and some of it will not be publicly disclosed until 2042.

Have you researched this material yourself, George? If so, you should be able to present any information from it to us that does name specific individuals. If not, what does your posting of this link prove?

STOPP's archived information for these files was putatively gathered c.1968-1989. Have you seen in this material evidence that would indicate that bare-bottomed caning was ever normal at school anywhere in the UK? What does this evidence have to do with your activities in the 1940s and 1950s?

The evidence you bring up to support your own activities seems to be increasingly irrelevant to your case.

I'm from Sydney and attended Boronia Park Public school and Cambridge Park High school in Sydney's western suburubs, just a newcomer to this message board and have been reading the postings from last to first.
I read the Roald Dahl book "Boy" where he tells the story of a boy who was caned on his bare-buttocks by the school headmaster. The headmaster went on to become a bishop of some form in England.
I personally never witnessed a bare bottom caning and have never heard of them until I read the book. I was caned once on my bum, four strokes for involvement in a fruit fight, from my headmaster and he gave it to me over my shorts.
Girls were rarely caned, a friends sister was caned she got four strokes on her hands by the Mistress for Girls.