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This is a rare view of the Birching Room at Eton College!
Artists impression as so old no camera was used.
Note the "block".
This was used in conjunction with trousers or breeches fully lowered.
Linen drawers were also lowered presumably as they might have become
considerably blood stained during the birching.
Perhaps the carpet was coloured red to hide any "spillage"?
However there is no mention of this.

I thought it is about time I commented on this post (as nobody else has), and congratulated Mr Bozo on this most interesting find.

The flogging block in the picture is the one which was used in the Eton "Lower School", for the birching of junior boys aged between 10 and 13.

Looking at the picture, it is self evident how the block would have been used, but for the unenlightened I will explain.

When a boy was to be birched, he had to take down, or completely remove, his breeches, kneel on the lower step of the block, bend over resting his belly on the upper step, and place his hands flat on the floor on the other side. One can only imagine the lewd and indecent exposure of a boy's bottom that this position resulted in. Once in position, up to three dozen strokes with the grotesquely large and heavy Eton birch would be applied to the naked buttocks. At the end of the flogging, the wretched boy's bum would be a quivering mass of raw, wealed and bloody flesh, with streams of blood running down his thighs on to the lower step of the block, and on to the floor.

The lower school birching room in the picture was known, euphemistically, as the "Library" for some strange reason.

No wonder lads subjected to that regime went on to lead the armies which maintained the empire on which the sun never set. After that experience being outnumbered 100:1 by several thousand hostile natives baying for your blood must have seemed a mere minor inconvenience!

Seriously, a punishment like that is barbaric by anyone's standards, and was even then. Though I'm a firm believer in the merits of school CP I'll stop at six of the best maximum - and with a cane not a birch!

I find this totally barbaric and this was supposed to be in a
civillized society.
What possible misdemeanour would merit such a beating?
An attempted assassination of the Headmaster maybe?
Perhaps it was the over-use of CP in schools that caused it
to be abolished.

In fact this shows the Headmaster's room at Eton where senior boys (ie. those in the Upper School) where birched. The boys in lower school where flogged in the lower school classroom. Several old photographs of both exist and normally show the block and birch in place. At the time the school was split in to Upper and Lower schools and boys entered the lower school at a very young age, often 7 or 8 and transferred to the Upper School at 12. Both parts of the school used the birch on the bare bottom and boys where punished in front of their fellow pupils and contrary to what others have written about Eton birchings the normal maximum number of strokes was 6 with 8 sometimes being given.

Thank You all.You can just see a bench type school desk in the right hand side of the picture perhaps indicating that this was indeed a classroom of some sorts with a row unless it was for the seating of a punishment recorder with a book?
Even up until the last century "The Head"of Eton and other schools was still taking small tete a tete classes of 8-9 boys for Drama etc.in his own sepcial classroom...
The observations are very interesting.
The magazine article in question has now been discarded for space reasons.

With the benches at the back, that looks like a school room so could be the junior common room?

My reading on the subject suggests that to add insult to injury, each boy was billed for the birch used to flog him at the end of the term as these were single use implements.

I like the birch holder, how comvenient for the flogger if not the floggee!

Scotty

In response to Mr Shaw, you are right in that by the mid to late Victorian period birchings had become considerably more humane with the maximum number of strokes being reduced to 12 for seniors and 8 for juniors. However, going back to the early Victorian period and the Georgian period before (18th century), juniors could receive up to 3 dozen and seniors up to 5 or 6 dozen.

I still believe the flogging block in the picture is the junior one, due to its small size. Seniors would have been birched on a larger block of the same relative proportions.

Interestingly, throughout Eton's history, there was never any variation of the size of birch used on juniors and seniors. The same savage instrument consisting of 3 ft of handle and 2 ft of a thick bundle of birch twigs was used on all ages. In the case of juniors aged 10 to 12 the "bush" end of the birch was considerably bigger than the boy's bottom it was being applied to, and would have covered the whole area from the small of the back to the upper thighs on each stroke.

I have uploaded some photographs to a photo website for you all to look at. They are all old postcards plus two pictures I took of the flogging block on display at the Eton museum. Two pictures of the Lower school room, both show the block, one has a birch in place. Also two pics of the Headmaster's room where according to the contemporary books about old Eton that I have is where the Upper school boys where birched.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/32130530@N08/

Link should work ok.

Thank you very much, David. It is greatly appreciated.

Aaah yes much appreciated!Much better than mine I have to say.
Incidentally the display cabinet remonds me of the Cat of Nine Tails on display in a cabinet in The Royal Marines Public Museum Portsmouth...

Thanks David

SO the drawing was of the Head's study with perhaps a viewing gallery for paying pervs? The lower common room first picture shows the block and a birch ready for impromptu and instant justice, or perhaps just a case of the cleaner leaving a broom around.

I wonder how often these rooms were used for the subject of interest here? The fact that no less than three birches are to hand in the Headmaster's study does suggest it was rather frequent.

Scotty

(Who notices his slightly over enthusiastic post on the corporal habits of one of Winston's school mates was correctly editted out - must be tricky keeping tabs on this place!)

Here's a rare photograph of the infamous "alter of sacrifice" upon which thousands of boy's bottoms were joined in holy discipline to the birch over the centuries.


http://images.google.com/hosted/life/f?q=birched&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbirched%26start%3D80%26ndsp%3D20%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26newwindow%3D1%26safe%3Doff%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26channel%3Ds%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-GB:official%26sa%3DN&imgurl=4c48e9768cbbde31

A grisly object indeed. It's certainly what the antiques trade calls 'well distressed', as no doubt were many of the boys who spent time bent over it!

They were only well dressed up until the point when their breeches were pulled down/removed and bottoms bared for flogging!!

Errm, have another look at my post Disciplinarian! That's 'well distressed' not 'well dressed'!

Point taken Mr. Another Lurker - An embarrasing gaff on my part due to mild dyslexia combined with a lack of knowledge of the antiques trade and its related terminology!!

Hi Disciplinarian. No need for the 'Mr' - just call me A_L, everybody else does!

I can see how the misunderstanding arose. After I'd done my posting above, with the two words side by side in bold I looked at it and had great difficulty in telling them apart!

I may be wrong about 'distressing' but I think it's what antique dealers do when they tip the dustbin contents onto someone's discarded dining table and then give it all a good thumping with some chains before selling it to an unsuspecting punter for a vast sum as late medieval. I trust any antiques dealers who visit this estimable Forum will inform me if this is incorrect!

Hi A.L. - I think you're probably right. It's either the process of trying to make an antique look much older than it really is, or it may simply be an expression dealers use to try and add a "positive spin" when describing a piece which is in a tatty and damaged condition. You can guarantee either way that it is to do with maximising the price!.