I've now found the material (it's always in the last place you look), so I can post it. I've decided to put more into this post than just that material - but it will come first.

As I say, whether it answers the challenge or not does depend on the form of words used. It does seem to be a fairly good match for that of 2nd November 2002, but it matches others less perfectly. Still, it should be of interest.

First of all let me explain the source.

Broadly speaking the source material for this post is the 'House of Commons Official Report' commonly referred to as 'Hansard'. In case there are people who don't know what Hansard is, it is the nearly complete record of the business of the British Parliament (the term is also used for similar documents relating to many other Parliaments of the British Commonwealth of Nations).

Speeches, questions, and answers asked in the Parliament are recorded in its pages.

Between 1945(? - I need to check this - the source I originally consulted said he became Member for Newport in 1946, but I've just found a quote from him from 1945 that indicates the 1946 date is incorrect) and 1956, there was a rather interesting member of the House of Commons of the UK Parliament. His name was Peter Freeman, and he was the Labour Member for Newport.

By the standards of the times (and probably by the standards of today in most people's minds) Mr Freeman was a bit odd. You see a bit of a description of his politics at http://www.paulflynnmp.co.uk/herkeydetail.jsp?id=116

One of the issues he was very concerned with was the corporal punishment of children. He campaigned against it - especially in schools, but he was also opposed to it domestically.

He made a long speech against it in Parliament of the 24th April, 1947 - and that speech was part of the impetus for the report I've been citing statistics from. I may post the speech a little later - but it's too long to include in this thread.

Now, on several other occasions, Mr Freeman raised the issue of corporal punishment in the House, and I've been collecting such references. He seems to have made it his business to raise such matters whenever a case he considered particularly egregious came to his attention.

It is one of these occasions that is of interest here, and comes closest to answering the challenge.

What is interesting reading this material - at least for me - is the revelation of how little control there was over headmasters in many schools - including many state schools. The British government made only one regulation about corporal punishment at this time - that a punishment book must be kept. All other regulations were in the hands of the local education authorities - some of which set quite detailed regulations and others which left matters entirely to the discretion of individual headmasters.

What's fairly clear to me reading all this is that there were areas of England and Wales (Scotland seems to have had separate regulations), where provided a headmaster didn't exceed his common law boundaries (which basically only stated punishment couldn't deliberately permanently injure a child) he could have got away with just about anything he liked without anything to fear from the law.

That doesn't mean it happened - but in both statutory and regulatory terms there were areas where there really was that little control.

The introduction is becoming rather long so I think I will post it and paste the individual statements below it.

And now here is the relevant material. While no school is named, it is quite clear that Miss Wilkinson (Ellen Wilkinson, Minister for Education, 1945-1947) is aware of the case. The fact that the school is referred to as being within the purview of the local education authorities, indicates that it was a state school.) While it is not certain a cane was used, the description of the injuries does suggest a cane as the most likely cause. I can't be certain if this case ever reached a court or not - if it did, that's a mark against it in terms of the challenge issued, but it's still going to be of interest. Yesterday I was inclined to believe the case hadn't got to court. Today, I've changed my view on that - I think it might have, mostly because that's the only way I can reconcile a statement Mr. Freeman made on 24th April, 1947 - if he's referring to the same case in both incidents, he either got the child's age wrong below (where he says she was 8) or in April (where he says she was 12). [If it is the same case which did reach the courts however it's worth noting that the teacher involved was acquitted and the court found that the teacher was acting within his rights to administer the said punishment.]

The exchange took place during Question Time, on the 12th December 1946.

"Mr. Peter Freeman asked the Minister of Education whether she has any report to make on the conduct of a headmaster who recently inflicted corporal punishment on a girl of eight years of age; whether the inquiry of the local education authority has been completed; and what action she proposes to take.

Miss Wilkinson: I understand that this case will be considered further by a subcommittee of the local education authority on 18th December. It is for the authority to decide what action should be taken in the matter.

Mr. Freeman: Is the right hon. Lady aware that at a medical examination soon after the event two heavy weal marks were found by an independent doctor on the buttocks of this little girl? Is it in accordance with the regulations of the Department that a headmaster can inflict such assault and punishment on a child without witnesses, without inquiry, without informing the child of the fault or crime committed, without giving any reasons, without any knowledge of the state of health of the child, without informing the parents or anybody else, and without anything being done by her Department?

Miss Wilkinson: I am sorry, but this is one of the matter which come with the purview of local education authorities and they must deal with their teacher on these questions of discipline.

Mr. Freeman: In view of the unsatisfactory nature of the reply, I beg to give notice that I will raise the matter on the Adjournment at the earliest possible moment."

I'm rather surprised at the lack of comment so far about the previous post - considering the veracity or otherwise of claims of headmasters caning girls on the bottom has so often been raised on this forum in the past.

Could it be that some people just prefer arguing to actually determining the truth or otherwise of allegations, I wonder?

Anyway - to the post:

"Mr. Peter Freeman asked the Minister of Education whether her attention has been called to the case of a child eight years of age recently hit with a rubber instrument and injured by a headmaster; and whether he will consider issuing instructions to all school schools under her jurisdiction that all forms of whipping, flogging, and hitting or other forms of corporal punishment on small children are liable to be treated as boldily assault and action taken in the courts for any infringement.

Miss Wilkinson: I have seen the newspaper reports of this case. The school in question is not one which falls in my jurisdiction. With regard to the second part of the Quesion, there is no evidence that the schools under my jurisdiction require any such instructions as those suggested."

Dear Dean,

Please do not spoil the fun by doing research and posting facts.

It is so much more fun to assert and speculate and then rubbish each others postings, cast aspersions and worse.

"Mr. Peter Freeman asked the Minister of Education whether she will abolish all forms of corporal punishment in all schools under her jurisdiction for both boys and girls.

Miss Wilkinson: The question of corporal punishment is generally left to the discretion of school authorities. I believe that discretion to be wisely exercised and apart from what is said in the "Handbook of Suggestions for Teachers," I see no cause for general directions on the point. There has been a welcome decrease in the infliction of corporal punishment as a means of maintaining discipline in school, and I am confident that this will continue.

Mr. Freeman: Does not my right hon. Friend consider it an anachronism that children are kept disciplined as a result of force and fear, and does she not consider it should be abolished?

Miss Wilkinson: I think my hon. Friend has not kept in touch with the conditions of discipline, and of the changed conception of discipline which has taken place."

Dear Dean; You would have received quite a few responses if the incident were reported something like ... The Headmaster ordered her knickers down and to touch her toes. When the first stroke landed she cried out "oh sir, please please." The incident as reported just leaves an awful feeling in the pit of my stomach because it was an obvious case of abuse that really happened to this little girl and she really did have to endure it at the time. If she were my child I would have paid the bastard a visit. Preferably in a dark alley somewhere.

When I was about 3, my family had hired as maid/babysitter/housekeeper a 16 year old girl from a rubber-tapper's village. As both my parents worked, I was alone with her in the house daily from 7am to about 2pm. One morning before school, my mother (a teacher) noticed that there were bruises all over my thighs. She got it out of the maid that she had been pinching me as punishment. My mother turned into a fiery valkyrie and caned the maid about the legs with the rattan handle of a feather duster most severely.

Interesting points about this story:
I don't remember the pinching -- I do remember being surpised to see the bruises as my mum pointed them out.

The maids parents did not raise any fuss at my parents when my father almost threw her out the car at her parent's house a day or so later.

Thereafter, two servants were hired, a young girl and an older woman. These two are famous for whisking me off to the safety of their quarters once when mum was mad at me and brandished the feather duster.

Mr. Peter Freeman asked the Minister of Education whether he is aware of the recent case in Stafford where 28 boys, all aged about 13 years, were flogged with a rope; that no action was taken against the master who administered the punishment and who was not even reprimanded; whether such punishment is in accordance with the regulations approved by him; or what steps he proposes to take in the matter.

The Minister of Education (Mr. Tomlinson): I have received full reports of the special meetings of the Governors and of the Staffordshire local education authority which investigated this incident and I am satisfied that there are no grounds for my intervention.

Mr. Freeman: Is it not a fact that one of these boys was struck four time and that no explanation was given? Is it not most undesirable that such mass punishment should take place?

Mr. Tomlinson: Having read the evidence, I fail to connect it with the statement in regard to the individual being struck four times. I am convinced that the action taken by the educations committee is sufficient.

Wing-Commander Hulbert: Is not this much ado about nothing?

Hi Bob,

The difficulty, of course, is we don't know how accurate these reports are. My own feeling having read a lot more of Mr. Freeman's statements is that while I don't think he was deliberately dishonest in laying out his questions, he definitely sought to present them in the worse possible light, and I think on some occasions he may have been mislead as to what actually happened.

If it's true that the punishment was administered without adequate inquiry, and without the girl being informed of why she was being punished, that would certainly, in my opinion, have been unjustifiable.

But we just don't have any way of knowing.

We also don't know what the girl was accused of - and that makes it very hard for me to judge as to whether I think the punishment might have been justified. Presumably she was caned at least twice. From an article I obtained last Thursday - which looks at the punishment books of English state schools from a slightly earlier period, two strokes of a cane was a fairly routine punishment when corporal punishment was used. If she was 8, it would seem a severe punishment for me - if, in fact, as I suspect, she was 12 - less so.

If she was 12, this was the case that probably went to court and was referred to by PF in April. For the case to get to criminal court as it seems it did, that would suggest it was fairly extreme - and Mr. Freeman speech (bearing in mind, of course, the possibility of exageration) does seem to suggest that the teacher escaped punishment only by a narrow margin - well, I can certainly believe this case was unreasonable. But we can't know.