Rules for prefects’ beatings
Prefects – senior boys – at many public schools in
England were permitted to beat younger pupils well into the nineteen-sixties.
Of course, it was part of an ancient ritual in such places; they were a world
apart from the modern age. These were private, elite schools – mostly with
pupils boarding. Younger boys ‘fagged’ for
the older ones – that is they acted as personal servants.
Royston Lambert, an academic, and colleagues made a
study of boarding schools in England in the 1960s. They looked at all types and
not only the elite ones. However, they found prefects’ beatings only took place
at the so-called public school. Here is an extract from their book. The words
are from boys who were asked to write about their experiences.
When prefects beat in a public school, it is for a particularly severe piece of insubordination, or, sometimes, for an accumulation of other punishments. It is all codified into precise rules of conduct:
1. Punishments
are set at the discretion of the prefect responsible, but there is a right to
appeal to the Head of the House and, then, to the Housemaster. No boy should
ever be prejudiced against because he exercised his right of appeal.
2. The
extent of the punishment depends on the prefect although uniformity for certain
offences is a good thing. Punishments may consist of lines, 2,400 word essay
for every 50 lines, or 30 lines of memorization. Setting of Latin lines is to be
discouraged. The setting of essays which require some work on the part of the
offender is to be encouraged.
3. Accumulation
of 500 lines (or the equivalent in fatigues, essays, etc, etc) or three lates
are punished by a house beating. The victim must, however, have received a warning
when he passed the 450 lines or 2 ½ lates mark.
4. No
boy may be beaten without the consent of the housemaster. Maximum number of
strokes is six.
5. Boys
in the Sixth-Form are not beaten.
Head
of House, public school
Even the solemn ritual of a prefects’ beating in a
hushed house is laid down in detail. It may go like this:
Having seen the Housemaster, the Head of the House then
calls the offender up before his prefects in the House Hall. He speaks to the
boy and it shakes the boy up considerably if all the prefects put their spoke
in, and if this is done sensibly without malice it can be very beneficial. He
is then told to go to his study. There is a ‘studies’ call given by the
prefects. This means that no-one is to emerge from their studies or from
anywhere else during the beating. It is the duty of the Junior Prefect to fetch
the offender; if when asked whether he wishes to appeal to the Housemaster he
says he doesn’t, then he is beaten.
Head
of House, public school
Or in some schools there are variants:
About beatings. Usually done in a dorm over the end of a
bed. The canes are kept in the housemaster’s room. You must have at least two
house pres present to witness. When you have to beat a boy, send two pres up to
the place to get it ready. Then, see the boy. Tell him to wait outside the
place. On your way up, don’t forget the cane. When he comes in, make him take
his jacket off. As to how hard or how many strokes, that is up to you. At the
end, don’t forget to enter it in ‘The Book’.
Head
of House, public school
Extracted from: The Hothouse Society, an
exploration of boarding-school life through the boys’ and girls’ own writing,
by Royston Lambert (Weidenfeld And Nicolson, 1968).
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Traditional
School Discipline
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