School masters discretion

Sadly, I believe that some teachers of the old school saw the application of corporal punishment as a sign of their authority or simply as a tool to keep order. So it was often simply a case of "it's time for a caning" and the next person to step out of line ended up with a sore backside for committing some trivial offence. The good teachers were those who commanded respect and only handed out a caning when it was deserved.

There was a good example of that in a film about the Profumo scandal. As far as I can remember, Stephen Ward (played by John Hurt) recounted how as a boy he'd been caned in front of the whole school for an offence he didn't commit. When he met the headmaster years later he said to him "You must have known I was innocent." The head replied, "You're missing the point, Ward. Someone had to get a thrashing, and it just happened to be you."

I spoke to my gran at the weekend about this. She is nearly 90 and was a teacher/headmistress all her working life.

She worked in all girls school almost that whole time. At first she, she told me, she was desperate to 'fit in' with the other older (old school if you will) and speak at the drop of a hat. She soon found all this did was make the punishments almost meaning less and counter productive as you might as well be very bad rather that just a little as you would get spanked or caned in anywise, thus making the problem worse.

After a few years of service, she began to be more and more selective, using different punishments (lines, detentions, litter picking etc) but when she did use her hand, slipper of cane on a girl's bum, she knew why and knew she's been punished. As a result, she found with her pupils, behaviour did moderate with time.

Don't get me wrong, she might still have 3 or 4 girls a week over her knee or desk, but compared to a dozen for her colleagues, it was very different at first, but gradually seemed to be adopted my more and more of her colleagues.

When she was head she had the best of both worlds, teacher could set their punishments, but she got to spank maybe 30 or 40 bottoms a week some weeks, yet still have that same ethos through the school as a whole.

She makes no bones about the fact that she enjoyed altering a girl's attitude and behaviour through spanking - well, at the end of the day, who wouldn't, towards the end of a long teaching career, not want to be drip fed day after day, 5, 6 or more bums to smack and be paid for the privilege. I'd have gone into teaching had that still been the case.

From comments here, I seems that in England the use of CP was confined to the head teacher or PE teacher. In Ireland the practice was all teachers would use CP and it was invariably given in the classroom on the hand. During my school days I remember comparing schools with cousins in Scotland( Renfrewshire) and England(Wolverhampton) not specifically about CP just general information. The practice in Scotland seemed very similar to Ireland, each teacher using a strap/Tawse on the hand. My two cousins in Wolverhampton asserted that their school used the cane but they had never received it nor had they ever seen anyone receive it. So it seemed very different cultures.

I think they idea of authority and culture were important in the use of CP at that time, both in school and in the home. There was regular talk of children being spoiled and needing a good 'wallop'. If a neighbour or shopkeeper etc. complained to a parent about a child then it was expected that the parent would spank the child. In somewhat the same way, it was expected that children not doing their lessons or not paying attention would be caned or strapped by the teacher. So there possibly was some societal pressure on teachers to conform to those expectations. I also wonder, in England, did head teachers feel they were obliged to use the cane if a teacher sent a student to them otherwise it might be seen to undermine the teacher?

I remember national television (in Ireland, The Late Late Show) doing a discussion program about CP in school. The general consensus seemed to be that school couldn't function without the use, or at least the threat, of corporal punishment. And adults generally took the view that they had received it and it hadn't done them any harm. That program was probably late sixties and I know that a similar program was made about ten years later, with the same attitudes expressed.

According to my mother in a London primary school in the 50s, the classroom teacher would hit them on the hand with a ruler. My grandmother complained to the head once when a teacher slapped my mother’s face. She said bottom or hands fine, face absolutely not. Once at her girls’ grammar in the 60s there was no corporal punishment and, she says, almost no punishment at all. We were talking recently about how strict and petty modern schools are and she said that at her school you might get a disapproving glance if, say, you ran in the corridor, but the glance would be enough. She became a teacher in the 70s and never used any cp, though remembers cane adverts in the back of the Times Educational Supplement. She was in the NUT (now NEU) and often talks disparagingly of the ‘hang em and flog em’ NASUWT who wanted to keep cp in schools. She said that in her first teaching job, at a new comprehensive in Wales, it was seen as mark of pride by the boys to be caned and they would brag about how often they had been.

Mum and Dad have similar stories form schools in the 60s and 70s. Many teachers smacked, slippered or caned. Infants and junior teachers would put you over their knee but that was very rare in secondary school 11+
The funny thing the mentioned that teachers with the best discipline never needed to whack you. There almost seemed to be an inverse correlation between readiness to slipper or cane and discipline.

My dad was a student in England, some years after World War II. He would tell us stories about male teachers who served as soldiers during the war. He was convinced that many came back wrong in the head. He swore that they were plagued by flashbacks and battle fatigue. Some would lose control, thrashing students for trivial lapses, then breaking down in tears afterwards. Others became hard, taking sick pleasure in terrorizing students, proud that they would cower in their presence. Truly deranged.

My mom went to school in Scotland. She told us that most teachers had a belt. The mean teachers would sling it over their shoulder so that it would stay stiff and so the students could always see it handy. The milder teachers would roll it up and leave it on a shelf so that it got more pliable and supposedly less vicious. Students were only belted on the hand, but it seemed to be up to the individual teacher as to how many licks could be applied. She said that students were usually, but not always, given a choice of the belt, which was quick, or writing up to 200 lines, which was not.

An old boyfriend of mums went teacher training in the late seventies.
He recalls being advised to slap small children on the back of the knees as the marks don't show and it will be his word against the child's if the parents complain.
Thank God those days have gone

The Stephen Ward story made me smile. I also did not fully deserve my first caning - my two friends sitting next to me in Assembly decided to pull the two chairs in front of them back at the end of the Lords Prayer when everyone sat down - the two in front had no seats and went down causing an incident. I did not pull any of the chairs back and was essentially innocent, but the Music Master playing the Organ caught me smiling next to my two friends. Factually I played no part in the 'crime', but he caned all three of us that morning in his side room immediately before the scheduled music lesson with everyone in the classroom next door listening.

PGreenham, Yes, the punishments I remember mostly are those which I felt were undeserved. Others punishments are less memorable except in a very general way. CP was so commonplace that there was little to distinguish one incident from another.

But to answer the OP, it seems clear that teachers did have a certain amount discretion but i imagine they had to take into account the school policy and 'tone' and also issues of fairness and effects on behaviour in general

Hotscot, Your mother was almost certainly talking about a leather strap specially made for the purpose rather than a belt. Such a leather strap was also used extensively in Ireland but the Scottish are very proud of their Lochgelly Tawse. In Ireland, although the straps all seemed to follow the same pattern they appear to have been made in local harness makers. Certainly in our village, the harness maker repaired the straps for the teachers.

The strap was made up of four layers of leather and through constant use the stitching would become undone and the layers would begin to separate at the business end. Initially this meant the strap delivered a double stroke but eventually the strap would start to fall asunder and would need to be repaired. Incidentally, it was also believed that some teachers had a penny sewn into the business end of the strap to deliver an even tougher smack, not sure if that is true tough.