Inside the pages of Hartlip School’s Punishment Book
A small piece of history from a village in Kent, England, reveals how children (mostly boys) suffered corporal punishment in the early part of the 20th century.
A book detailing the
offences and punishments dished out at Hartlip School from 1909 to 1936 is featured on Hartlip’s history website. Hartlip is in Swale, Kent.
It was a specially produced
book, from the Educational Supply Association (The Holborn Series of
Registers) and was priced at 1s 6d.
The first headmaster to
feature in the book is Mr John Labrum, who was headmaster from 1894 to 1924.
The history website says, ‘In
the period covered by the Punishment Book during his term of office (2nd
February 1909 to 12th of February 1924) he administered 2,002 blows of the
cane. During this period there were 3,069 school days meaning that, on average,
he caned at a rate of over half a blow per school day or one caning every two
days.
‘Of the strokes
administered 5 were on girls and 1,947 on boys.
‘Attitudes to punishment
were very different in those days, and in an autobiography by Clifford Davison,
he notes;
‘“If you did get into
trouble then when you went to school you had to reckon with the Headmaster, who
would give you a good caning and it hurt. It was very painful if the cane
caught you across the thumb. On one occasion Fred Whitehead had his finger
split open and his mother came to the school to see about it but she couldn't
do anything. Bad behaviour had no sympathy ...”
A Mr. Southgate took over
the running of the school in 1924. He was far less likely to use the cane.
Between March 1924 and April 1932, he administered just 71 strokes, or roughly
0.03 strokes a day, compared with Mr. Labrum’s overall average of 0.65.’
For more on the Hartlip
School Punishment Book click here.
Picture credit:
Hartlip History.
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