Boys rebel, destroy the birching block by fire

One night the Head had over eighty boys roused from their beds at dead of night – sending the tutors round to the different Houses to waken them – and then soundly flogged them. Their sole offence was that they were supposed to have been disorderly in chapel. The culprits were brought to his study by twos and threes, and the operation lasted until the small hours of the morning – Extracted from When Eton Burnt Its Flogging Block, by C. H. C., a true account published in the boys’ story paper Cheer Boys Cheer, 11 January 1913 (available to download here).

A modern-day re-enaction of a school birching (Sting Pictures).

Eton, the most exclusive and expensive of public schools, has always been notorious for the severity of its punishments.

Even nowadays [1913] the birch is in regular use for serious offences; but in times not so long gone by the slightest breach of the rules was made the occasion of its employment.

No wonder that in the end the boys resolved amongst themselves to stand it no longer – that they rose in rebellion, defied their masters, burnt the flogging-block, and generally played havoc with order and discipline.

The trouble began with the appointment of a new Head of the famous college. He was the son of a Windsor butcher, and this in itself was an offence to the aristocratic scholars.

Snobbish wasn’t it! Still, there it was, and the feeling was common to the whole school. No wonder there was trouble.

Nevertheless, at the beginning the new Head might possibly have been able to have gained the respect and affections of his charges, providing that he had gone the right way to work. But he went the very wrong way. Finding himself unable to rule by ordinary methods, he adopted those of terrorism pure and simple.

One night he had over eighty boys roused from their beds at dead of night – sending the tutors round to the different Houses to waken them – and then soundly flogged them. Their sole offence was that they were supposed to have been disorderly in chapel. The culprits were brought to his study by twos and threes, and the operation lasted until the small hours of the morning.

On another occasion the names of a batch of candidates for Confirmation were by accident sent up to the Head on a piece of paper identical in size and shape with the “bill” used by the masters for the purpose of reporting delinquents.

All the boys mentioned in the document were duly flogged, none knowing the why and the wherefore; nor was an apology forthcoming when the mistake was at length discovered.

Up to the new Head’s time all floggings had been administered in private, and the praepositors [prefects], and the Sixth Form boys generally, were exempt. But the new Head flogged in public before the whole school, and treated them all alike.

The climax came one afternoon when the doctor announced his intention of flogging several big boys, amongst them being William Grenville – the same who afterwards became Prime Minister of England – and the eldest son and heir of the Earl of Onslow. A start was made with the latter, and he took his actual punishment without a murmur, although he protested strongly beforehand against the indignity that was put upon him.

But when it came to Grenville’s turn, he flatly refused to kneel.

“Sir,” he said hotly, turning and facing the astonished Head, “It is a scandal and an outrage, and I will not submit to it.”

“Then, sir,” replied the doctor, “I shall expel you from the school.”

“Very well,” said Grenville, turning on his heel, “do so!” Whereat a roar of cheers broke from the assembled boys.

In vain did the assistant masters try to stop the uproar. They were assailed with all sorts of missiles, including rulers and inkpots, and were compelled to beat a retreat.

A HISTORIC BONFIRE

Then the angry and excited boys surged into the library, secured the flogging block, together with a dozen new birches, and proceeded to make a bonfire of them in the middle of the Playing Fields.

But the block was of solid oak, and did not burn very readily. So they got pokers, made them red-hot, and drilled holes into it and through it. Afterwards, what remained of it was broken into pieces, which were eagerly seized by the boys as souvenirs.

Indeed, to this very day there are to be found fragments of charred wood from the old block jealously preserved in not a few of the “stately homes” of England; while one of the largest pieces remaining unburned was conveyed secretly to London, and for a time became the property of the president of the “Eton Block Club,” an exclusive society for which no one was eligible who had not been flogged at least three times at school.

During the proceedings in the Playing Fields, and afterwards, the Head remained grimly inactive, viewing the scene from a distance. Nor even when some 160 boys broke bounds, and started to walk to London, after throwing their school-books into the Thames, did he actively interfere.

Perhaps he thought it wise not to, for amongst the rebels were several active, strong lads – almost young men – of eighteen years of age or thereabouts. These seniors constituted themselves as leaders and the smallest boys followed them readily.

By six o’clock the rebels had marched in a compact body as far as Maidenhead, where a halt was called for the night, every available bed in the inns there being hired at good prices. Indeed, there seems to have been no lack of money, the bill at the principal hotel amounting to no less than £55 and some odd shillings.

The boys did themselves well here as elsewhere, for after disposing of a sumptuous dinner on their arrival, they partook of an equally elaborate supper.

With the morning, however, came serious thoughts, followed by a division in their counsels. Some of the older boys were for going on at all hazards, while others, frightened at the possible consequences, voted for returning to Eton, and trying to patch up a truce. In the end about 120 turned back, while the remaining forty resumed their journey.

Some amongst these latter were well received by their parents; others were not. Thus, Lord Harrington’s son, who was one of the ringleaders, was actually refused admissions to the family mansion in Grosvenor Square.

“Go back to Eton at once, sir!” commanded his father wrathfully, through the keyhole of the front door.

“Sir,” answered the young man, “I’ll be hanged if I do.”

“And I,” replied his father, “will be hanged if you don’t!”

“I don’t know about that, my lord,” retorted his “dutiful” son, “but you most certainly deserve hanging in any case.”

The two sons of the Marquis of Granby met with a warmer reception, and were asked whether they would like to go to the theatre that evening. The offer seemed too good to be true, but they accepted it with alacrity.

“Very well,” said the bluff old general, “you shall go there tonight for your own pleasure, and tomorrow you shall return to Eton and be flogged for mine.”

Of the main body who returned from Maidenhead of their own accord, all were birched, and some were expelled. Amongst those who suffered the extreme penalty was Burke, the “cock” of the school, a burly Irish boy of eighteen.

When he knelt down to be flogged a dead silence prevailed. The doctor administered the punishment with unsparing hand, then bade the culprit stand up, and said, “Now, I expel you from the school.”

By methods such as these order was restored, and the malcontents cowed. But the best comment on the Head’s unfitness is to be found in the fact that during his rule, which lasted barely eight years, the total number of scholars fell from 622 to 210, over 100 having either been expelled or withdrawn owing to their participation in the “Great Rebellion” as the series of incidents above narrated are termed in Eton College history.

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