No judicial birching has been carried out on the Isle of Man since 1975, the year before the European Court of Human Rights condemned it as 'a cruel and unusual punishment.' Until that time the island was a law unto itself, continuing to flog juvenile lawbreakers long after the practice had been discontinued on the British mainland.
The Manx rod consisted of three or four flexible but stout hazel rods each about 40 inches long and three-eighths of an inch thick. Youths sentenced to the birch were flogged across the bare bottom whilst being held down over a table by police officers. A former police bircher was reported as saying: 'The birch cuts; it bruises; sometimes it raises weals that stay for several weeks.'
Humiliation was deemed to be an essential part of the punishment. According to one of the police officers deputed to wield the rod: 'Too many young hooligans laugh at a prison sentence or fine. They don't laugh at a birching.'
Read these accounts of Isle of Man birchings.
For many years Britain's 'senior service' relied upon the cane and birch to discipline its boy entrants, with both ratings and officer cadets being subject to corporal punishment. For example, at Osborne Naval College on the Isle of Wight the captain-in-charge could order the infliction of 'official cuts', laid on by a petty officer. Regulations permitted up to 12 strokes of the cane to be administered 'on the breech with clothes on.'
Read this brief memoir of the caning of officer cadets at Dartmouth Royal Naval College.
Until the early 1900s naval cadets were also subject to the birch, the punishment invariably being carried out in public. The procedure was described in the pages of 'The Humanitarian':
The offender is strapped hand and foot, in this case, over the bitts or the breech of a small gun, his trousers are allowed to fall below the knees, a broad canvas band is passed round the middle of his body, and his clothing is strapped up by this means, leaving thighs and buttocks perfectly nude. The same preliminaries are gone through as in caning, but the strokes are deliberately delivered on the bare flesh, not in rapid succession, but with a slight pause between each stroke, making the torture and agony of as lengthy a duration as possible. With each stroke the flesh is seen to turn red, blue, and black, with bruising; after six or eight strokes the skin usually breaks. At the twelfth stroke a halt is called, and a fresh corporal with a fresh birch supersedes the first, and the boy is allowed to drink water, which is always provided. The officer orders, 'Carry on the punishment', and the second instalment is laid on; splinters of broken birch whizz and fly in all directions and the offender often swoons, and has to be supplied with restoratives before he can be half led, half carried, to the sick berth below.
Many naval officers considered corporal punishment to be essential if order was to be maintained amongst their younger charges. A vice admiral put the point in his memoirs:
The best, and to my mind the most suitable, punishment for a boy is to cane him. It is quickly over, it does not stop his recreation, and if it hurts him sufficiently at the time, he does not want to have it again. I always had boys examined medically before being caned, and the caning was done in the presence of a medical officer and in private, as I do not believe in public caning.
Caning of boys in naval training establishments, such as the shore-based 'HMS Ganges' continued into the 1960s and 1970. An ex-boy sailor later recalled one such punishment:
I was caught doing something which if I had been in the navy proper would have got me 'cells.' I was brought before the captain of the training ship and sentenced to 12 cuts of the cane. I was taken at once to the sickbay and told to strip off except for my socks and was given a pair of white duck punishment trousers. These are always worn by a boy who is to be caned. Then I was marched into the gym where the master-at-arms checked to see that I hadn't sneaked in any padding. I was told to stand to attention and the surgeon general came in with the regulating petty officer, who is always deputed to give the cuts and was carrying two long canes.
I was made to lay over the end of the gym horse and was held in position by two well-built boy ratings. The captain came in and said 'Carry on' and the RPO lifted the cane in a wide semi-circle to the back of his head and brought it down with considerable force. After each stroke the master-at-arms called out 'Cut delivered sir.' At the end of the 12 cuts I was taken to the sickbay where my injuries were inspected. The marks had already turned a mauve-blue in colour.
View this 1906 drawing of a shipboard naval caning, published in 'The Humanitarian', a campaigning journal.
BOY SOLDIERS
Strokes
The average service for a Boy Soldier in the immediate postwar period was about two and a half years. Upon reaching
seventeen and a half years of age a Boy Soldier would enter 'man service'. In addition to normal military punishments
such as 'confined to barracks' (CB) and detention (SUS - soldier under sentence) there was one additional punishment
reserved for Boy Soldiers at that time: strokes. Corporal punishment could be ordered by a boy's commanding
officer, the strokes being administered by the Regimental Sergeant Major. The boy would report in his PT kit and
the strokes were administered across his buttocks with a standard punishment cane.
Letter to parents 1957 from the commandant of the Arborfield Army Apprentice School
Over the signature of the commandant, parents and guardians of boys received for training at the AAS, Arborfield,
received a letter of acknowledgement and acceptance. The School authorities also provided parents and guardians
with a prospectus in which details of the training and education facilities, organization, leave and medical arrangements
were explained in detail. The letter strongly reflects a ‘boarding school philosophy’ on the part of the military
authorities. With regard to discipline the letter says:
It is my opinion that for certain boys the best form of punishment is a few strokes of the cane rather than confinement
to camp or detention. This is only awarded by me with your consent after my personal investigation of an offence
and is given in the presence of a senior officer. Would you please let me know by completing Pro-forma 1 (attached)
whether you consent to my awarding such punishment.
In the past, juveniles who fell foul of the law could be sent to a variety of reformative establishments, including approved schools, industrial schools, training ships and borstals. Discipline was usually strict, with the cane - or even the birch - in regular use. The corporal punishment procedures were governed by official regulations. For example, a 1964 government report on approved schools (special boarding schools for delinquent children) enumerates a number of rules regarding the use of the cane. The report recommends that 'corporal punishment should be reserved for serious offences. It is justified because on some occasions and for some boys it is effective as no other punishment is.'
In the earlier part of the 20th century the birch was also available in such institutions. The applicable punishment regulations for industrial schools in Scotland stated that:
For very serious offences in the case of boys the punishment of whipping shall be inflicted on the posterior with a birch rod, such punishment not to exceed 12 strokes. For less serious offences punishment shall be inflicted with a common school cane, to be applied to the palm of the hand, and shall not exceed six strokes.
Records of individual cases available for inspection in the Public Records Office provide an insight into the strict disciplinary methods of our Edwardian forbears. To take just one juvenile detainee at random: Henry Haddock, aged 15, was convicted at York in 1901 of stealing a quantity of toys and sentenced to be detained until the age of 19. His offences and punishments between April 1901 and April 1904 are recorded as follows:
Offenders
of this period could also be sent to training ships, of which there were many dotted about the British coastline.
These were the days of Britain's naval glory and with any luck the delinquent boy would benefit from the reformative
effect of the spartan life on board and be rendered fit for service in the Royal or Merchant Navies.
An elderly man, who many years before had been consigned to the training ship 'Akbar' at the age of 15 for stealing, wrote to his local newspaper to recommend the shipboard regime for today's 'young thugs.' He recalled a flogging he had received for insolent behaviour towards an officer:
The Captain, awarding me 15 strokes of the birch, told the man known as the Punishment Corporal: 'See that you give this rascal a sound flogging'. Having seen the ship's carpenter making the long whippy rods from supplies of fresh green well-budded birch switches brought aboard every so often, I quaked. All the boys paraded on the quarterdeck, where the flogging horse had been put out. I was stretched across it, with my legs and arms tied with canvas straps so that I couldn't move and my duck pants were pulled down. Then the Corporal, taking his time, birched me on my bare buttocks, swishing me with all the vigour he could muster.
I clenched my teeth and tried not to squeal, but at the third stroke I let out an ear-splitting yell. It was like nothing I had ever experienced - my weals burned and stung like fire and I howled unashamedly. When they released me from the horse, my bottom, cut and bleeding all over from the birch strokes, was like a white-hot ball of fire and I stood in front of the ship's company, weeping and squirming with the pain and humiliation. After a few weeks my scars disappeared and I was none the worse for being flogged. Indeed, the Akbar taught me self-respect and made a new boy of me. I have only praise for the officers, even the Corporal, who was a kindly man, but with a stern sense of duty. Training ships like this are what young hooligans need today.
The same no nonsense regime also applied to children's homes in prewar days, although the punishments were nowhere near as severe. Indeed, the staff in many such institutions continued to rely on corporal punishment to encourage good behaviour until well into the 1970s. For example a press story of 1979 records that:
A carry on caning order has gone out to heads of Lancashire's community homes and assessment centres despite a call to end the practice from a leading county councillor. The plea was opposed by Conservative Party councillors who felt that six of the best was still the best medicine. Explaining the rules applying to corporal punishment, the social services chief said that the number of strokes of the cane never exceeded six and were inflicted on the posterior over a boy's ordinary cloth trousers with any contents of the back pockets removed.
In prewar times canings in children's homes were less formalised, often awarded on the spot for misbehaviour - as one inmate who was caught out of bed illicitly baking potatoes later recalled:
'You are both lying. You tried to bake those potatoes and when you failed you threw them back on the fire,
didn't you?' He stared at us each in turn, his jaw thrust forward, daring us to deny the charge. We realised that
further lies would be a waste of time. 'Yes, Captain,' we replied, hoping that a prompt admission might somehow
react in our favour and reduce the sentence. The cane stopped swishing and pointed at Gammon.
'Bend over that chair.' Gammon did as he was told, and four hearty whacks on his bottom followed.
'Now you.' Pyjama trousers were no protection against the cane, and after each stroke it felt as though a red hot
poker had been laid against the cheeks of my bottom.
We stood there, massaging our behinds with our hands, jumping from one foot to the other - anything to try to obtain
a bit of relief from the pain.
'Now get to bed, and don' t let me catch you at that lark again, or next time you'll really get a thrashing.'
We ran up the back stairs a lot faster than when we came down, and climbed back into bed. Gammon and I were good
friends but I think our friendship was stretched to its limits that night. All we had received in return for a
good hiding was a small mouthful of hot, inedible spud, and all due to my stupidity. I slept on my side that night
- it was far too painful to lie on my back.
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