Memories: Punishment ‘swift and unambiguous’

 

‘Discipline in the 1940s and 50s at Wellington [College] was strong, with punishment usually swift and unambiguous,’ so starts a selection of memories of the elite school in Berkshire, England.

‘Nevertheless, we may have been wrong to lay so much emphasis on corporal punishment during the framing of our questionnaire; perhaps this resulted in skewing the responses towards something which was only one aspect of a larger disciplinary system.’

They appear on a website compiled by the ‘Wellington Community’ celebrating the history of the school that dates to 1859.

Here are some of the responses published.

‘Punishments were for the most part notional, such as brief detention, the copying of “lines,” or cleaning and weeding tasks around the House. In the Talbot there was a system which involved “penny fines.” For a minor misdemeanour, you would be fined one (old) penny, which would go to House Funds.’ A. M. (Talbot 1948-53)

This system of penny fines appears universal, as it was mentioned by many.

The fines were innocuous in themselves, but added up to have more serious consequences:

‘Four fines in a week and you were tanned [beaten]. The first week at Upcott was forgiven, but, sure as shooting, I got four fines the second week. I’m not sure how the Prefects engineered it, but they kept finding my towel in the bathroom.’ T. C.C (Hardinge 1954-59)

‘I think I had two canings… The offence, five fines in a month for things like leaving your jam jar on the windowsill outside the dining room or leaving an article of sports clothing on the changing room floor. I still say I was set up on the changing room fines.’ J. .A M. (Talbot 1952-56)

‘C. H. (Beresford 1948-53) was of the opinion that ‘being tanned for too many “black marks” did encourage you to do better, or become craftier in the future.’

Picture credit: Generated by Artificial Intelligence (A.I.)

  

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