While yesterday posting a piece under the 'TV and film CP' heading here, I mused on the question of why the recent TV film of the fictional but contempararily written 'Tom Brown' failed to keep to historical fact and showed him being caned instead of birched.
Some years ago I read an autobiography of an Eton boy written in 1874 - at the height of the Victorian Public School system and in fact the year, the oft-mentioned here, Winston Churchill was born. It described this boy's first birching in detail and apparently it was far less severe than he had imagined it would be. I think he said the first few strokes stung a little but after that it was nothing. The build up to his birching was the worse part, as he described shivering while 'letting down' his britches and kneeling on the block.
I wonder why even the well made films of today can't keep to such historical facts? There would be no need to show it but I think it should be allured to.
Tom Brown was supposed to be about Dr Arnold's time at Rugby in the early 19th Century. The cane wasn't introduced until around 1880. The reason it replaced the birch was purely because the prudish Victorians felt it was 'improper' to make boys lower their trousers and the cane could be administered without that need. It was considered just as painful across the trousers as the birch was across the bare backside and in no way was it brought in to lesson the severity of corporal punishment in schools. Unhappily for many boys, the cane was often still applied across the bare buttocks even up to the 1930's and possibly beyond that time.

Yes, I agree. I recently discovered a contemporary reference to the use of the cane at St Pauls School in London as early as the 1820s, but as far as I know that was exceptional. It wasn't made clear whether it was applied to the hands or the bottom.

What interests me is why was the birch replaced with the cane in schools, but not in judicial punishments (as far as I know)? Although I have only experienced the cane, I'm sure Danny is correct in saying it is no less painful than the birch.

I don't know the answer to that one but maybe it was the old 'Class System'. Judicial punishment was almost exclusively for the lower classes and so the feelings of the 'unwashed masses' was not to be taken into consideration. Gentlefolk needed their sons to be protected from the horrors of nudity, the rest didn't matter.
Oddly though, away from school it seems those same upper class boys were subject to bare bottomed punishment at home!

Wouldn't convenience and economy be as important as prudery in the cane superseding the birch as the everyday instrument of punishment? A cane, if stored properly, will last indefinitely, while a spray-type birch at least will need frequent replacement.

I understand that at Eton, while prefects and ordinary taechers used the cane, the headmaster and his deputy continued to birch bare bottoms well into the 20th century. Clearly removal of clothing before punishment had not become completely taboo in the Thames Valley. Presumably the birch was retained either because it was considered to be more painful or because the ritual associated with it was thought to have a salutary effect.

According to legend, when an Etonian was flogged, the cost of the birch was added to the bill sent to his parents at the end of term. If this is true it would suggest that a fresh birch was required on every occasion (and I don't suppose this was insisted on by the Health and Safety Executive).

My interest in corporal punishment was stimulated by redaing the yellow-jacketed Billy Bunter books at the age of 9 & 10 Mr Quelch and prefects swished their canes regularly but on one or two occasions a boy was publicly birched by the headmaster for a particularly heinous offence. As I recall Frank Richards does not tell us whether such birchings necessitated the removal of trousers.

Thank you for bringing to our attention the yellow-jacketed Billy Bunter books, GaryJenk. Here are just a few of them from the vast photographic archive of Big John Peacehaven, on holiday in Peacehaven until the end of the month.

Undoubtedly, once rattan became available its durability and portability made it greatly superior to the birch for everyday use. I suspect the birch continued in use long after the advent of the cane largely because of its aura and reputation earned over previous centuries. There is merit in having a rarely used ultimate punishment available.

It is a long time since the birch was in regular use but it still has considerable presence at least among those of mature years.