Evidently
this is Matilda Lester, who won the competition in 1946! (see Picture Post
below)
The Caning Competition - History
I’m
trying to retain a degree of historical scepticism here, but a number of posts came
up on IC in 2006 about there having been caning contests in
Networm
reported: I do voluntary
work in an industrial history museum, and I discovered these two curious
letters, apparently dating from 1875, buried at the bottom of a box of
Victorian scientific and electrical equipment which was donated to us. Needless
to say, I kept the matter from my curator...
The First
Letter
Cranthorpe
Dear Hawkins
Damn this
rain. Makes me see how dreary the inside
of Cranthorpe is. Solid deluge since
Tuesday and Uncle Arthur’s lot to stay: Young Tim has turned into the damnedest
little snirp, and Bella is prosy dull as ever. Hope it’s better for you at Bill hirst. Confound it; wish we were back at Burbury, I’m counting the damn days.
Cousin Coll was
here, one year my junior, and he’s a good enough fellow for boxing in the long
room, and he had a pal along from Digby (who I did not entirely take to), so we
had more than a few afternoons with the mauleys on, and I confess Coll has
learned a dirty trick or two at Digby, and I had to knock those out of him.
Hs comrade,
Baines, is a prefect at Digby, and thinks a deal too much of himself to the
mind of your humble correspondent, and he and I had several pretty bruising
set-tos I can tell you. I can’t say I’m
unhappy to see the back of him; only hope he thinks the same of me!
This is the worst
of it: One evening, after a good number
of lumps exchanged that day, and a bloody nose apiece, he starts this infernal
prose about the prefecture at Digby and their fearsome conduct with the cane,
and Coll yessing and nodding like some damned lackey.
Shall I tell you,
Hawkins? This Baines was all set to show
his style on poor Coll, but I forbade it, saying that as a Burbury chap, I
wouldn’t have such shines as using the cane as sport. He challenged me for lacking pluck.
I was pretty stiff
with him, and said that a Burbury hand could do as well with a cane as any of
Radleigh, but he scoffed and desired that I prove it.
This caught me on
the raw but I said that if he meant to prove his point, it might best serve
that some convenient place be decided and six pairs of fellows should come from
each side and so their offices in front of some to keep score. This diverted him well enough and we fell to
cases of criteria and rules, which occupied our talk til bed, with no more talk
of belabouring poor Coll.
I recount this
(which I hope is all stuff) in part to forewarn you in your office as head
Prefect from September. If there comes
any word out of Digby from Baines on this, my council is to send a scoffing nunquam.
Certainly I want no part of it.
To put it all out
of mind, I mean to spend the next day making a kite,
and the one following flying it (if windy).
I understand now why fellows speak of Digby as they do. Hurrah for Burbury!
Your friend and
associate
Hickey
The Second
Letter
Lisson Grove
Mary le Bone
1875
Mister Yelland,
Sir (Captain Yelland, as was):
I hope this finds
you well, Sir, and that schoolmastering proves the good thing as you did always
reckon it.
It is Briggs
writing, sir, if you recall me; I had the honour of being batman to you in the
old 11th in China, and I bore your bags to Burbery in ’63, and made
all as right as I could those few days, afore they could get a proper school
servant on the job.
I has fallen right on my feet Sir, as I hope you will be
pleased: I have these five years been engaged as waiter and other things at the
Roundway Club, so I am in regular money, and fixed right up.
As you may recall,
sir, with Briggs it is ‘mum’ on all matters irregler, and that is my rule at
the Roundway as you may understand, but a matter has come to pass what I feel
is best made known to you since foreknowing is, to my guess, just as important
for a schoolmaster as it might be for an officer or even an humble waiter or
barkeeper.
Last Saturday
night it did come about that I was told by steward that the Douglas Room be
reserved for a party of one Major Jones of the Sixteenth, and none bar his lot
let in, and me to attend on ‘em along with young Willikins. This I done.
The company, Sir,
was Major Jones, and two other officers, and a chairman, and one dozen boys
from your school, Burbury, and one dozen of a school named
I have never seen
such, Sir; these twelve pairs of lads was announced respectively by the
chairman, and the senior of each pair then displayed his skill upon the junior
with a cane, Sir, and the three officers gave the points. In the end the higher score went to Burbury,
and a bottle of port was given by the chairman as prize, whereat all parties
shook hands and departed.
It is not at all
my place to think right or wrong at what a gentlemen chose to do, Sir, not
nohow, but I’ve never seen no manner of thing like this in all my puff, and if
Burbury is part of it (as seems), I am doing you no service if I do keep ‘mum’.
Yours as ever I
was
Geo Briggs
And this appended:
Woolwich Arsenal
To Captain Baines, 2nd Dragoons
Sir:
I am concerned at certain developments regarding the Roundway Competition that we began eleven years ago, and has grown in scope by a damnable degree, so that now we have a dozen schools in it, and the rules altered to accommodate.
I must inform you that I have received letters from six men who head schools in our competition, and they mean to come and watch!
This is deep, Baines, Deep. We may easy find that these pedagogues mean to take our competition, born of boyish spirit, and make it their own: Our tradition taken as theirs!
I have taken time to talk to sir John Birch, our patron, and he thinks as I do: His council is that we must together sign articles, and apply for Crown Charter in our names under one name. Sir John’s suggestion, which I think apt, is ‘The Birching Block’.
If you reply ‘aye’, I shall direct my man to a notary, who will set wheels in motion to this end. If ‘nay’ I shall wait upon our meeting.
My own notion is that we must act fast, and set ourselves up properly, lest we unprepared are faced with a fete accompli by assorted beaks.
Ever your servant
Capt Charles Hickey
Royal Horse Artillery
This
from Westgate Old School:
Bolton le Sands,
Dear Martin,
I enclose a letter that was found recently by me while I was in the process of
restoring a
What’s caught my interest is the circumstances both
described and implied by the writer, Mr Brock: he seems to be very much the
stern ‘Victorian Dad’, and obviously thinks that a school’s prowess with the
cane far outweighs the merits of teaching, and has clearly consigned his boys
to the hands of supposedly the cruellest pedagogue he can find. What
father could do more? Now witness his outrage at finding himself
mistaken!
But the most intriguing bit is the ‘yearly competition’; fifteen schools
sending prefects to show off with the cane? It almost beggars belief, but
Doctor Harris is clearly using accounts of his schools prowess there in order
to attract parents’ money – I bet those Blakeney prefects had a lot of
explaining to do! I wish I could see a copy of that prospectus!
One thing is for certain, the Caning Competition did not originate with Ishmael
Skyes and The Firm in 1999.
Take Care,
Trevor Keyes.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sittingbourne, Kent, November 6th 1898
Dear Doctor Harris,
I am pained to inform you that I do not mean to allow my boys, Joseph and
Samuel, to return to your establishment, Blakeney College.
As you were informed in my letter of March 95, my boys are spirited fellows,
and in need of continual setting right. Copies of the prospectus received
in succeeding years 95-97 have made mention of outstanding vigour in such
matters at Blakeney, and this was in no small part the reason for my choice.
Last night, however, I attended a certain contest at the Roundway Club, of
which I am sure you are aware. I there witnessed the expertise of
prefects from some fifteen schools, out of which, I may say, those of Blakeney
swaggered, dealt light blows, cried ‘Take that!’, while their subjects wailed
and blubbered in a style most shameful – not the least to myself as a Blakeney
parent.
My boys will continue their schooldays at Sandyford.
Yours,
Augustus Brock
The
following, found by asdf123:
Sir,
I am the Head Master of the above Grammar School and the subject upon
which I write is one that is dear to my heart as it is to your own. Namely,
that I have heard that you host an annual competition in the art of caning at
the club called the Roundway, at which selected Masters and boys from some of
I look forward to your favourable reply.
Your obedient servant, J Holdcroft MA.
You can see the original - in surprisingly good condition, probably due
to where it was stored - as the only picture attached to my profile.
http://www.informedconsent.co.uk/pictures/asdf123/60335.html
The reply was found with the above letter, and
goes as follows:
Sir,
You are obviously aware that the annual competition at Roundway
Gentlemen's Club is confined to the boys and teaching Masters at the finest
schools in
Your most obedient servant (illegible
signature).
The first letter is dated
This from ‘John’ of Peaches
Spanking Club
“We recently had the BBC filming here for a programme called ‘Estates
Investigated’ presented by ‘Eagle Eyed’ Eric Soames. Due to go out next year, they say” “The deal
is that the Eric gets 24 hours ferreting, and the programme is about what he
discovers; all well and good, but what if he finds something you’d much rather
keep under wraps? Well, you do what I
did, and whip it quick”. “ This is a bit of a scoop,
and much too good for the BBC! It’s a
letter written to my great grandfather that was folded up inside his old army
bible. I’d heard about it from Granddad,
but never looked at it until just ahead of the Eric; bloody glad I did!
“Granddad’s thing was that it was written eleven days before the
eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month etc, and so very
significant (and the writer John Hawthorne died a day after writing it – it was
found in his pocket and delivered to Great Grandfather), but what gets me is
that Hawthorne’s mind was obviously on spanking right to the end, and seems to
have been something to do with a group called the Birching Block – early 20th
Century spankers, or so it seems!
(Though they sound to have become pretty depleted by 1918) – and by the sound of it, Great Grandfather was one of them!
As to the ‘Roundway Competition’ I’ve never heard of it, but it must be CP contest, and going on since at least 1913! There’s no mention of it on the Internet,
unfortunately. I think that I might have
stumbled on a very well kept secret!
Bapaume Ridge
What Ho Dick
We were bombed
again last night: I am dog tired, and can’t wait for next leave: some of the
chaps say they can’t stand Blighty now, but not me – I think only of Little
Suzie and her fair derriere.
Stupid I know, but
what else can I think on to keep me bright?
I woke up in my dugout last night to Fritz’s alarm clock to see a great
fat rat gnawing the inside of my loaf, and I blew him across the trench with my
revolver – greedy blighter. The forty
men I set out with are now twenty three, and we can see poor
If I do get
through this, old friend, I’m going to do what I should have done when we were
at Ladywell back in ’13: I’m going to tog little Suzie out as a boy and cane
her in the Roundway Competition. She and
I will sweep the stake, and the little tart will have something to tell her
grandchildren!
Keep safe back at
the depot, Dick; we’ll be done here in a day or two, then back to base. Call on Jane if you’re back in Blighty before
me.
Up the old BB
John
It
certainly looks like the same competition is being referred to, but where was
the Roundway Club? My first thought was that
the Great War killed it off, but the following (found by Madame Petra and in
Academy Incorporated) say different.
Punch 1921
Welcome
in Jemima!
Bless
my soul; it's barely a twelvemonth since Algy Bingham was blackballed from the
Roundway Club Caning Competition for trying to enter the lists with Master
Bertie Locke – more often known as Bettie Locke, belle of the Hackney Empire –
all tricked out in 'his' best bib and tucker for the required Six of the Best!
Ungentlemanly
conduct!' was the cry from Roundway as three crusty old colonels all bit
through their pipestems; all this and yells of 'Cad! Bounder! Bad Show!' And after all the practice Algy had put in (not
to mention the distress of 'Master' Bertie!
But,
stab me vitals, this year a volte-face from the pipe-smokers, and maybe a red
face too! For who is to step up to the mark, but Mrs Florence Bracegirdle and
Jemima!
Indeed,
the ladies have not merely become mistress of the Bicycle, the vote and the
factory floor, they have now won the right to compete
over who best wields the rod. But why such perversity from
the men at Roundway?
'Bingham
was put up to make a farce of the whole thing' our man was told hotly, 'Mrs
Bracegirdle is a lady of iron integrity and principle!'
Iron
rod too, no doubt. Ah me; where will it end? In chaos in your
humble hack's honest hopinion.
AND!
December 14th
1922
Dearest Bar’
Promised I’d tell you about my jaunt to the Roundway; here goes.
Dora and I hotelled in
There was a huge number and it was a copacetic job we had tickets as no-one could pay at the door. We drew many admiring and astonished glances from the boys, and ever so many catty looks from the Janes – of whom there were more than a few!
For the first time, the chairman explained, there was to be a competition for dolls and then one for chaps, with a cup for each, and we dames went first of course.
Wow! What a show! Some real skill and ferocity on display as each girl bent over the block and each Ma’am or Matron laid on six. My gams were like jelly when Dora and I were called up, but it felt super-daring to pull up her hem, lower her camis and lay on with my favourite, and Dora marked up like the cat’s miaow.
Much applause, but some sour looks too, and one old bird especially – what a fire extinguisher she was! Then came prizes, and Dora and I pipped Mrs Grundy into third place – we were second! – and Tara Phipps first (of course – she canes like the prettiest schoolmarm ever).
Then it was the guys’ turn, and frankly a bit of a bore. Dora and I cabbed back after the first three, and resumed her much merited swishing at the digs. Got to practice hard before next year, you see!
What a shriek! See you soon.
Hils
But Hils and Dora and their friends obviously raised hackles:
The
Rectory, Moreton in the Marsh,
To
the Chairman of The Birching Block The
Dear
Sir
I
was most disquieted, when I made my annual visit to your competition Saturday
last, to observe that a wholly inappropriate and unwelcome aspect seems to have
entered the proceedings.
To
write plainly, it is that many competitors were visibly taken not by a love and
devotion to discipline, but by beastly lust. I was quite ashamed to see the
recipients of many sixes rise not with tears, but with smiles of gratitude and
sinful intent, as if they would gladly receive more.
I
need not tell you that the cane is not an instrument of pleasure and that those
who derive such from its use are the basest of degenerates. I hope that you
will take steps to cut out this wickedness, root and branch, with the utmost
rigour.
Yours
sincerely
J
Siblington
Rector
Now
this is interesting; it was published
by Northern Spanking, and allegedly found during a periodic review of the
archives of the HMS Mercer naval base, and previously the property of First Officer
Alan Lester who went down with HMS Tresco, when it was torpedoed in 1942.
In
context with the rest of the stuff it assumes great significance; Tilly is
clearly writing about the demise of the Roundway Club, courtesy of the
Luftwaffe in 1941, and is clearly a good friend of Algy and Bettie Bingham (see
the Punch article above – they seem to have tied the knot since 1921!). Note also with greater wartime egalitarianism
the end of separate competitions for gentlemen and ladies!
[Letter received by First Officer Alan
Lester, HMS Tresco,
Dearest Alan
How I miss you. It seems ages since your last leave, and aeons til the next, and only the snap of you in those shiny riding boots to remind me, and ‘Tickler’ hanging on the bedroom door, of course!
For once, I’m not writing with a lot of dreary stuff about landgirls and evacuees; bad news though, I’m afraid.
The [censored] club has gone. News came with Johnny last week; [censored] direct hit. It’s burned to the ground.
I was in town Saturday, and took a bus to [censored] Street. All cordoned off, and an empty shell, so I tooled round to see old Algy and Betty Bingham. Algy is firewatching these days, and Betty sings for the boys on leave. We drank tea and commiserated.
Not all bad though, because Algy is still full of beans and says he’s got a plan or two for somewhere we might use – ‘Hitler won’t stop us spanking’ says he – and Betty’s the perfect brick – she means to do a concert to get funds. I offered to do my poor best on the ivories, and she cried ‘Bravo!’
So it’s ups and at ‘em still, and with luck we’ll keep the flag flying over our typically English pastime. If we do, it’s going to be just one competition this year Ladies and Gents have been segregated far too long! I do hope you have leave for it, my love, then we must spin a coin for who wields ‘Tickler’. I do hope it’s me!
I enclose a few things that might be helpful. The boys are doing well at school, and Tim is proud of his salvaging, they send love, and the picture (painted by Martin) of you on ‘your ship’.
Love you ever so much
Take care
Tilly
Godalming
Closely followed by this: What Tilly did
next! Including a
picture (see above). Stevenson
Hall, Atlantic Road, Brixton – does anyone know where this is?
Picture Post:
Hats off (or bottoms up, rather!) to Mrs Matilda Lester of Godalming, who won the annual Caning Competition at the Stevenson Hall, Atlantic Road, along with her fiancée, Mr John Hayes.
‘John always bears up splendidly’, she told our reporter. ‘I can see he’s going to make me very happy.’
The occasion was also marked by a passionate oration by the new chairman, Mr Jeremy Ellis, lately demobbed from the Royal Engineers.
Taking the stand to present the cup, Mr Ellis said, ‘We come here every year to celebrate the practice of caning as a perfectly natural and harmless game that can be part of a loving tryst between any couple who enjoy it. We have all seen how things go when spite and intolerance are used as the watchwords of a land, and our games are not those of the bully or the brute. That is why I have invited Picture Post here to see this.
‘What happens to small boys in schools up and down the land’, he continued, ‘Is alien to everything we stand for, and I, for one, repudiate any implied connection. We lovers of the English cane can and must hold our heads high and show ourselves proud and passionate about the things we hold so dear.’
He was received with a standing ovation.
More
intriguing; this from childroland2006 – can this possibly be true?
A contact of mine in the PRO turned up something quite
intriguing last week - I understand it was part of a file of governmental
'ephemera' recently declassified under the 30 year rule. While there is no way
of determining the veracity of these documents, one cannot deny that they make
interesting reading. The letter and accompanying 'commentary' are reproduced
verbatim.
Dear
Tom
Well,
seems that's it. I've spoken to the man from MI5 and they will not, under any
circs, kill the press story: Not only is the Caning Competition sunk, there is
now very little chance for Labour next time round. We are in the unrelenting
clutches of a most terminal fix.
MI5
really were a forlorn hope, but after the Mail were able to overturn the
original injunction (on appeal), they were the last thing we had, however, the Idiot Brigade do not want
In
a couple of days, the story will run and the pictures will reach the British
breakfast table. The Tories and that sheep ADH therefore, have the next
government in the bag, and the Little Man will go spare. I'd take a holiday now
if I were you.
It
says in Radio Times that some new rubbish is starting on TV about time travel:
If I had such a time machine, I'd go back to the night of the 2nd and stop you
and CK before you got into the building, let alone into the competition!
Dear
God, Tom, you got us all into a hell of a mess.
Bertie
The
above letter, addressed to Tom Driberg's home address but never sent, was found
with a note paperclipped to it 'FAO John Pearson', in an archive box owned by
my late grandfather, Albert Bakewell, once a departmental head in a branch of
the Civil Service.
Why
it never reached Pearson, famous as the biographer of the Kray Twins, is easily
guessed: Grandfather Albert was prone to flights of fancy that occasionally
escalated into paranoia, and he was ultimately required to take early
retirement as a result. His secretary presumably considered this letter to be
just such a fiction.
But
is it? Grandfather's grasp of the politics of 1963 seems to pass muster; the
'Idiot Brigade' (MI5) were dead against Wilson (the Little Man) and not about to
help kill any potential scandal that might stop Labour overturning the
government
What
the scandal was, I can only guess at, but it seemed that Driberg entered a
caning contest (the mind boggles) with one 'CK' – given the year, this could
have been none other than Christine Keeler! The Mail had indeed got a scoop,
linking a prominent Labour Politician with a notorious good time girl in the
most sordid circumstances.
As
to why the letter was never sent, and why the story never broke, we must look
to the date of the letter. Grandfather notes a new programme on BBC television
- this can only be Dr Who, first shown on Nov 23, famously just after the
shooting of JFK. Doubtless the death of the
Extremely hokey;
Tom Driberg and Christine Keeler?
Even if the competition was still going on in 1963, even if it has been
essentially the same competition going back pre-1898 (which it isn't), Tom
Driberg would never have been at any such competition with Christine Keeler in
1963 - it was straight after Profumo, Keeler was just too hot to handle, and
Driberg was gay!
Yes,
Albert Bakewell was indeed having a flight of fancy!
This
from Rubberroy
Motivation
1984
Hats off to Tim of The Rump, who has stepped in to
save the Caning Competition at the 11th hour, by providing his own
He adds
“I seem to remember joining Motivation many years ago. It cost the vast sum of
£45 and we got very little for our money! They done a few mags, and that was about it.
I think
the Clare mentioned from the North may have been the Claire I got to know (of
Clair and Brian) who used to go to der Putsch.”