Prefect bullies

The long-running Glasgow-based police detective series Taggart had an episode called Out of Bounds in which no fewer than three masters at an elite boarding school are murdered. An important sub-plot revolves around school bullying (go here for more plot details).

Three prefects pour urine onto the bed of a junior boy to make it look like he has wet the bed. The headmaster discovers this and they end up in his study with perhaps predictable results. Except that this is 1998 and corporal punishment in schools is unlawful.



Picture and movie credits: Scottish Television

There is nothing unusual in fiction or real life about prefects bullying younger boys. Indeed there was “state sanctioned” bullying in the days when at so-called public schools prefects controlled discipline and beat younger boys almost with impunity. Sometimes the beatings were vicious as in the movie If which was set in the 1960s. Another Country set in the 1930s also has a severe prefectorial eating.

The Billy Bunter stories, written by Frank Richards and published in The Magnet had a resident sixth-form prefect bully in Gerald Loder. Loder is a bully. The Remove form and the fag forms know that that as well as they know anything. But, as a rule, he keeps his bullying within bounds; he exercises it mainly in the name of discipline.


The Magnet 10 October 1936

 Back in real life Gerva D’Olbert in his book Chastisement Across The Ages (The Fortune Press, 1956) reports that many adults looking back at their time as school prefects recognise that they enjoyed beating younger boys.

 As one says, “It was perhaps a way of taking revenge on those who had beaten me myself only three or four years past. The physical wounds of a thrashing may heal in a month, but the scar in the soul remains, and I certainly enjoyed inflicting on others the same systems as I had myself endured. But, enough psychology. It was a healthy discipline, and I certainly tried to hit them as hard as I possibly could. I think all my colleagues did the same.”

 D’Olbert muses:

Thus, even while admitting the perennial need for correction of the average youngster of all

races, we can question whether he often deserves to be “hit as hard as I possibly could,” especially when the punisher is a brawny athlete who – unconsciously, let us hope – uses this chastisement as a practice for batting, bowling, or fives-throwing. It is true, however, that a discerning head prefect, in the case of a boy who is weakly or who has committed only a trivial offence, will hand the rod to one of his less athletic colleagues; in such cases where several prefects collaborate in. the infliction even this proviso loses its relevance. Thus we are led back to the ancient dilemma: “Who will master the masters?”

In the case of prefects, it is often the Headmaster himself who has to intervene in defence of the younger boys. Not seldom he has been known to rebuke, dismiss, or even expel or chastise a prefect for his abuse of power. In most circumstances, the matter will be arranged either by the Housemaster or among the prefects themselves, before it reaches the Head’s ears; and even the Head may judge it more prudent not to make too public any rebuke or penalty he may impose on an erring senior boy. For even a prefect is, to a headmaster, still a boy, and “boys will be boys,” whatever they may do to other boys. None the less, just as in the last resort the prefect’s cane may deter the fag, so the Head’s power over birch or rod may deter the prefect; and in neither case can the deterrent prove effective, unless it is sometimes displayed in action. Thus the Head has sometimes to chastise (whether publicly or not, is a question involving the prestige of authority itself) an erring. prefect.

A recent anonymous school-story, The Prefect in Disgrace puts many of these points succinctly.

Here are some passages:

 A slim lad of fifteen, his rather trembling form arranged for punishment, McMullan awaited the sharp blade of the cane. But the pain never came . . ., for a messenger arrived for Captain of the House, Herdman; with an urgent command to see the Headmaster.

Inside the latter’s study, The Captain of the House, terror of juniors, himself stood quavering and aquiver. The Headmaster, a double-blue and ex-chaplain to the Artillery, was accusing his House Captain of secretly trespassing out of bounds . . .

When Herdman remarked he was on the point of “licking” his fag for lying (Herdman had licked too much of late, and the Head had heard many contradictory reasons as to the why of this.) The Head sent for McMullan, for he could see by the furious, twitching and twisting of Herdman’s hands and face that all was not well with his House Captain, who would hardly have behaved thus if his conscience was clear.

Eventually, the whole affair leaked out: It was true that McMullan had carelessly smashed a picture that was his fag-master's property, and had increased his offence by lying into the bargain; but the picture itself turned out to be a portrait of the notorious daughter of a publican many miles out of bounds.

So the Head was in his Artillery mood, and nothing would satisfy him but Herdman’s immediate expulsion, and a birching. Herdman was appalled; birch a House captain? EvenMcMullan, as he stood gaily by, was horrified. But the Head explained – as well as in his fury he could – that  Herdman was captain no more. The Head hath Given – the Head hath Taken Away.

Remembering, however, the fag’s own offence, he took from one drawer a birch and a cane from another . . . “In order to punish Herdman as I wish-who, incidentally, has been so cruel to young McMullan – I need some practice. Bend over that table, boy.” The boy. Herdman stood back a few steps in palpitation because he knew McMullan’s caning was but the prelude to his own birching . . .

Surely every reader, D’Olbert concludes, the most humane and the most judicial alike, must admire the sagacity of this particular Headmaster.

For Movie Clips, click here

For more TV drama, click here

 For more items including Prefects, click here

For more extracts from Chastisement Across The Ages, click here

Traditional School Discipline

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