The Swinburne Academy was established some years ago by the Reverend Dr. Yeats. Dr. Yeats was a Church of England Clergyman and had been for a number of years a parish priest but he had come to accept that that was not his true calling. Endless rounds of tea parties with his largely elderly and female parishoners provided little in the way of interest and although he would have wished to take an active interest in the Choir the boys tended to be a little young for his liking and he was well aware of the dangers of making advances which might not be welcomed. Thus,when his aged and wealthy mother died leaving him a handsome inheritance he resolved to estbalish a private school for boys.
The Rev Yeats was an admirer of the Victorian English poet, Algernon Swinburne decided to name the academy after him. This was a potentially danegerous course for as many of you will no Swinburne was famous not only for his published works ("The hounds of Spring and on Winter's traces......etc)but for some more dubious works such as "Lesbia Brandon" and "The Flogging Block" (Incidentially, some of this work can be located on "Bill's Wetware Emporium" WWW site).However most parents were unaware of Swinburne's interests in this area, and those that were drew their own clonclusions and opted for another school.
The School porspectus promised a "sound education for boys from good homes who were currently under-achieving and were in need of close personal supervision and firm discipline". The prospectus was as good as its word and the 14 to 18 year old gathered under the Academy's roof could be ensured of just that. Spotty, fat or unduly skinny boys might not receive such close personal attention but the most unpleasant looking were generally excluded following an interview at which fair hair and muscular looks were as important as academic achievement !
Dr Yeats insisted on strict adherrence to school rules and would punish the most minor infraction - failure to do so would encourage bad habits and lead to character defects. Only the the Head could impose punishments and punishment only took one form (albeit with some variation) - the cane.And caning was always delivered on the bare backside of the miscreant. The Head provided the school with a highly innovative and original code of discipline - in which he took no little pride. One of its featues was the Punishment Board ( no! not that - you are running away with yourelf )The Board contained the names of boys to be punished and would be pubished first thing each morning. Boys were thus faced with the unenviable choice of reading the Board fearful that their name would be on it or recoiling from it and hoping for the best. In a way it was probably better to join the early morning melee round the board than run the risk of hearing the bad news from a classmate later in the day. Some boys would sidle past it just quickly glancing at it hoping to establish that they were not shown on it today and that the inevitable caning was postponed to another day/
The list of names was divided into three: Dormitory Punishment School Punishment Head's Punishment This was the order of seriousness but each held its own terrors and the Head had ensured than none was any easier to deal with than the others. I will describe each in turn.
A Dormitory Punishment was awarded for a minor non acamdic offence, lateness, scruffiness, failing to turn up for classes or games with the right equipment and so on.It was handed at in the dormitory last thing before "lights out". It was, in a sense the least painful of the three punishments but the Rev. Yeats' ingenuity ensured that it could not be taken lightly - for if one boy in a dorm was to be punished then so was the whole dorm and in identical fashion.A muiscreant could, therefore expect to receive no only the attentions of the Head but also of his outraged roomates. A School Punishment was the most humiliating. It was awared for academic offences such as failing to hand in work or poor performance in class or exams. It was humiliating because it was given at morning assembly in full view of the entire school. A Head's Punishment was the most serious and was for breaches of rules such as absence from classes, smoking, being found in bed with another boy and so on. It would be carried out in the Headmaster's study, with a heavy cane and was certainly the most painful; fgew boys could walk away from the strokes received their without at least an involutary tear in the eye and some would flee in floods of tears.
The arrangements for each I will now detail. Like all punishments,a Dormitory Punishment was inflicted on the bare bottom. It was inflicted with a fairly light but whippy cane; not as painful as the others that I will describe but it would leave the recipient with extreme smarting all over the nether regions and bright crimson stripes where it had come into contact with the upended bottom. The rules were quite simple and well understood. If one boy in the dorm had his name down for a dormitory punishment then all members of the dorm, (usually 6 or 7 others) would receive two cuts. It wo boys were on the list then all would receive 4 and in the event of 3 or more names appearing from the same dorm then all would receive a truly painful "six of the best".
The Head would arrive at the dorm ion his academic gown, bearing the instrument of correction. He would stand at the door and call out the name of the culprit. "Browning, prepare yourself !" Young Browning would then take a chair to the end of the room , stand behind it facing away from the Head and the other boys. He was then required to drop his pyjamas and bend over the back of the chair with his hands on the seat of it. Meanwhile the boy's own seat was perfectly positioned for the Head and the other boys to admire. The Head would stand a little to the left of upturned bottom and order the rest of the dormitory to stand to the right so they they could witness what was happening to Browning's bottom and visualise what was about to happen to theirs. At the conclusion of Browning's beating he would be required to remain in his upended position and not allowed to remove his hands from the chair to rub his scalding backside. If it was 2 cuts, that wasn't too bad since as most of my readers will know from their own experience of the cane, a cane cutting into your bottom isn't really that bad; its when it cuts across an existing weal or bruise that the pain becomes excruciating. With only 2 cuts it was difficult for the Head to develop this.
Each boy would then stand by his bed and in aphabetical order, drop his pyjamas, bend over the bed and expose his buttocks to the attentions of the Head. They were allowed, as soon as their own beating was finished to stand up and pull up their trousers and give themselves what little comfort they could manage. When his rpound of the dorm was complete the Head would call on the culprit to stand up and turn round. (This gave the Head the opportunity to see for himself whether the sound of the other boy's being beaten had aroused any excitment in the lad). He would then give him, as he stood covered by little except embarassment,a stern homily based on him having let his colleagues down and having subjected them to punishment because of his own thoughtlessness. He would then wish the a collective "Goodnight" and take his leave. Once his footsteps could no longer be heard down the hall, Browning could expect to receive the most painful part of his punishment as his angry, smarting roomates went about his already painful posterior with a selection of slippers, hairbrushes, cricket stumps and whatever else came to hand.
More serious infractions, were, as indicated dealt with by a School Punishment at morning assembly. A truly awful experience it was too. To contribute to their humiliation those to be punished were required to stand on the stage throughout assembly in full view of the entire school, as if they were visiting celebrities or invited guests. They were in a way of course because there was not a boy in the school who didn't relish the prospect of another boy's bottom being upturned and subjected to the Head's enthusiastic attentions.For a 14 yr old the sight of the School's opening bowler of front row forward - a sporting hero- having his bottom exposed reddened by the cane would be as exciting as the reverse when older boys could legitimately admire the rear view of that young fair haired lad.
A boy's standing in the school could be determined by the way he coped with a School Punishment. S sporting hero would no longer be able to swagger around receiving the admiring looks of junior boys if he had cracked under his ordeal and cried or pleaded with the Head. Equally a young lad in receipt of his first beating would become a much respected and sought after companion if he could manage somehow to produce a rueful grin to his mates as they filed out at the end of assembly.
It was always the good doctor's practice to implicate other boys in the punishment which he was about to inflict. Thus, two boys, usually from the same class as the victim would be selected to assist the Head. At the end of the other business of assembly one boy would clear away the papers and things from the Head's table to turn it into a sacrificial altar whilst the other was desptached to the Head's study to fetch the cane which was conveniently placed on the Head's desk. This latter task was a welcome one for it enabled the boy to get aquainted with the instrument which had or would in the future beat out a pattern on his own backside. But the boys thus selected would of course feel a mixture of guilt at participating in the punishment of a colleague as well as excitement. There might also be a little fear for they would soon have to face the boy to whose discomfort they had contributed.
The Head would call out the name of the boy to be punished, and apparently ignoring his rapt audience address him on the following lines, "Tennyson, you know why you are to be punished ?" It was generally accepted that the only answer to that was "Yes sir", even if there was some doubt in your mind. "You are to be punished for failing to hand your history essay and your maths exercises in, do you understand ?" Again "Yes sir" was the sensible response.Just occasionally an independent spirit fired up by an acute sense of injustice might attempt to fend off the inevitable "But Sir, I did hand them in ".Such resistance was brief, futile and painful. "Are you telling the entire School that Mr Wordsworth is a liar ?". "No Sir" was the only possible response and even that fleeting moment of independance would result in a beating which would fully exercise the Head's energies.
"Take off your blazer and stand in front of the table". The miscreant would hand his jacket to one of the Head's youthful assistants and would stand with his back to the assembled school. "Take down your trousers and pants". The boy would fumble and fidget as his trembling and reluctant hands undid his belt and pushed his trousers and pants down his thighs from where gravity took control leaving him encumbered by clothing round his ankles but his bottom exposed to the attentions of the Head's instrument of correction and the attentive gaze of the School.