Since corporal punishment was finally banned by parliament in state schools in 1987 (by a majority of just one vote) there have been numerous calls to reinstate the cane. Opinion polls show that the general public would certainly be in favour. Under the headline 'Backing for a Whacking' a newspaper telephone poll in 1988 reported 92.5 % of callers in favour. The argument for bringing back the cane was well expressed in a newspaper interview by an 82-year-old retired truancy inspector:
When I was at school there was as often as not a disruptive pupil who distracted the rest of the class from their work. Once he had been caned the rest of us could get on with our studying. After you had felt the cane, you gained a healthy respect for it. Nowadays the same boy would most likely be excluded from school, losing out on his education and sowing the seeds of future delinquency.
Similar arguments have been put in the letters columns of newspapers:
The quickest way of restoring discipline in our state schools would be to bring back the threat of the cane. In the past the mere knowledge that a teacher could use the cane as the ultimate sanction was sufficient to deter all but the most recalcitrant offenders. As a consequence, actual canings were few and classroom discipline was effectively maintained.
During the heyday of corporal punishment in state education, the actual incidence of canings varied from school to school. In some schools the cane was akin to the nuclear deterrent - deployed but, with any luck, very seldom used - whilst other establishments gained a reputation for being 'whacking schools.' (View this list of caning offences from a London boys' comprehensive school, detailed in 'A Last Resort?', an anti-corporal punishment book of 1972.)
Some research into the incidence of corporal punishment was carried out by the anti-caning pressure group STOPP, which claimed in the 1970s that schools, taken as a whole, were inflicting 'more than 1000 beatings in each school day.' STOPP had a policy of publicising the 'whacking schools', perhaps hoping to shame them into using less corporal punishment.
A boy who attended one such 'whacking school' ( a boys' grammar school in the English midlands) during the 1970s recalls:
Whackings were normally carried out by the deputy headmaster, a sallow skinned Irishman with a well deserved reputation for strictness who certainly knew how to apply the cane to maximum effect. Boys whose names appeared on the 'whacking list' had to visit this gentleman directly after morning assembly the next day. You had to bend over a heavy oak stool, which I assume he kept for this purpose, and anything up to six strokes of the cane were inflicted, depending upon the seriousness of your offence. I was caned on several occasions as a junior and it hurt an awful lot. The fact that you were put on the whacking list the day before was an added punishment. It meant that you had almost an entire day and evening to think about your impending caning and you always set out for school the next day with butterflies in your stomach.
Many grammar schools relied on prefects to maintain order, especially amongst the younger boys, the usual sanction being the imposition of an essay or lines. In some state schools senior prefects were empowered to slipper or even cane persistent offenders, but this was relatively rare. And although, as noted above, there were a fair number of 'whacking schools', at other establishments a boy needed to accumulate quite a history of misbehaviour before the ultimate sanction was unleashed.
Although the term 'school caning' inevitably brings to mind the formalised ritual of the schoolboy obediently bending over to accept a beating across his buttocks, pupils in state schools were often disciplined by the application of the cane to the palm of the hand. In some schools classroom canings were invariably carried out in this manner whilst at other establishments there was a mixture of both methods, as this page from a 1920s punishment book illustrates.
A boy who witnessed hand canings in the 1930s recalled in particular
the way the cane whistled as it came down and the speed with which each recipient slid the caned hand under the opposite armpit, pulling the injured hand tightly against the vice formed by his arm and body. To my surprise very few of those punished cried, although they often grimaced and bit their lips.
Another veteran of 'handers' remembered that:
I rubbed my hands on the cold comforting hinge on the top of my school desk. A veteran of past handers had told me that this helped to take the sting away and suppress the sausage-like weals that emerged across the palms of your hands. I wasn't very impressed by the cold hinge treatment - my hands still throbbed with pain. Sod this, I thought to myself, I won't be late for school again.
This cartoon from a boys' comic of the 1960s shows that the same punishment was still being used on latecomers some 30 years later. (See also this page from a punishment book of the same period.)
'Pupil's cane call'
Although it is usually Conservative Party MPs who are at the forefront of calls to reinstate caning, sometimes the request comes from pupils. The following item appeared in the press, under the headline above, at the end of 1996:
Schoolchildren in Newark, Nottinghamshire have written to their MP urging him to support their campaign to bring back caning. They told Richard Alexander that they wanted a return to corporal punishment because they were fed up with disruptive pupils misbehaving in classrooms. The Tory MP said he supported the move.
Read this 'What If?' story, imagining what might happen if the Newark pupils had their wish granted
In contrast to the Newark pupils, it is likely that most schoolboys welcomed the demise of corporal punishment - and who can blame them? Some idea of the attitude of pupils at the time when the cane still held sway can be gained from correspondence sent to the 'Junior Letters' column of a national newspaper in the mid-1970s.
This famous cover illustration from a 1959 issue of the weekly magazine 'John Bull' carries the following caption:
It's no consolation for these two to remember what every schoolboy learns the hard way - that the patient man behind the door has two remedies for unofficial fisticuffs. There'll be the ultimate deterrent in swishy canes (now costing ratepayers elevenpence each) or a bout in the gym with large gloves and the coach watching out for clutching in the clinches. But the suspense is part of the punishment. Even our artist doesn't know which way his cover headmaster is going to jump.
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