Boys publicly caned after sit-down strike: news report (they couldn’t sit down after ...)
Whack!
Sit-down strike is over
NEARLY 400 schoolboys, many of them sons of the Ford
tea-break strikers, went on a sit-down strike in their school
playground yesterday [13 October 1961].
Half an hour later the head had “settled” the strike
and 20 ring leaders were not so keen on sitting down... He caned them before
the assembled school.
And he suspended three other boys for “leaking” news
of the strike outside.
The boys were filing out for their 11 o’clock break at
Cornwell secondary school, East Ham, London, when somebody shouted:
“We want a tea break.”
A 15-year-old prefect said later: “It started as a
practical joke. Everybody just sat down.”
The boys sat shoulder-to-shoulder against the railings
of the playground.
Prefects shouted at them to get up. Then the boys and
prefects started hurling milk cartons at each other.
Masters rushed to end the battle. But the boys still
refused to get up. Then the head, 54-year-old Mr. William Morris, intervened.
‘DISRESPECT’
He said later: “As soon as they saw me, all the boys
stood up. Then some of them sat down again.
“I couldn’t allow this kind of disrespect.”
An 11-year-old boy said: “The head was angry. He said
it was a half-witted thing to do.”
The 20 boys got two strokes each. Mr Morris’ plan to
end any future sit-downs?
FOUR strokes.
As published in Daily Herald (UK), 14 October 1961.
Picture credit: The Magnet
Traditional School Discipline
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