Each part of the school had its own flogging block, a wooden step on which the victim knelt with his trousers down
to receive his punishment on the naked buttocks. In that position he was attended by two 'holders down' whose duty
it was to lift up his shirt tails and keep him there until the full quota of strokes had been administered. The
ceremony was referred to, accurately enough, as an execution.
The Eton birches were intimidating instruments consisting of three feet of handle and two of a thick bunch of birch
twigs. A dozen new rods were supposed to be at hand every morning since there was no calculating the mrmber of
floggings which might be inflicted in a day.
A boy 'complained of' by a master or tutor, for any one of a long list of possible offences and also for idleness
at lessons, would be 'put in the bill' (the flogging list). Then, at the appointed hour, he would be birched by
either the Head or the Lower Master, depending on his position in the school. In the Lower School the 'executions'
were always fully public and the boys would gather to watch the fun, with Upper School boys also permitted to attend.
It must have been humiliating, especially for sensitive victims.
Generally a boy endured the ordeal with fortitude, but sometimes there were scenes of screaming, howling and struggling.
In the case of the older boys there was some humiliation in being flogged publicly. A certain captain
of the boats, a tall athletic young man, about to be birched by the Head, begged hard that he should receive his
punishment in private and thus escape the degradation of being observed on the block by a large crowd of young
boys looking through the open door. The Headmaster refused point blank, declaring that the publicity was the chief
part of the punishment.