We now leave the skeleton of the early public schools; it is time to add some flesh—to look at the faces of those in them, to try to imagine what their lives were like.

As the years pass, the dim figures from earlier centuries—Albert, Alcuin—are replaced by sharper portraits, the colours harsh, even crude. In the 16th century, and for long after, standards in the schools were modest, and even then frequently not reached. The statutes of Felsted stated only that masters should not be “drunkards, whore-hunters, or lewd in living”. And almost without exception they were violent floggers.

Nicholas Udall, the headmaster of Eton from 1534–43 and the figure Thomas Tusser reproaches in his curious and sometimes moving autobiography from which I quote above, was notorious for the savagery of his beatings. It was he who beat poor Thomas Tusser—fifty-three blows for a little boy. Nor were these beatings gentle. Cook, High Master of St. Paul’s in the 16th century, beat John Sandeson so hard that he bore seven scars on his backside for the rest of his life. At Eton in 1560 the assistants at a beating were known as the “holders down”. There was often blood. The instruments of torture were savage too. A mid 17th century account recommends “a good sharp birchen rod and free from knots, for willow wands are insufferable”. At Charterhouse a hundred or so years later (but many other schools had this) a five-foot bunch of birch switches were fastened at the handle end and “armed with buds as big as thorns, renewed after six strokes for fresh excoriation”. For a number of years, Winchester tried long strong flexible apple branches secured in the grooves of a heavy two-foot handle. Finally they decided birch was more painful. No wonder there are frequent records of boys running away in terror of the lash.

Udall was notorious for more than beating. His sexual behaviour with his boys was flagrant, continuous and open, and in 1543 exposed him to blackmail. Two pupils, Cheney and Hoorde, were caught stealing silver images and plate from college. It seems likely that they threatened to expose Udall’s sexual indulgence unless let off, and he called their bluff. At any event, they accused him of the grossest sexual misdemeanours, and implicated him in the robbery. The whole case was examined by the Privy Council, mindful that a law had just been passed making the extreme homosexual offence—buggery—punishable by death. Udall was cleared of the theft and found guilty of everything else. However, as Hollis notes in his account, headmasters are rarely hanged; particularly perhaps headmasters of Eton. The sentence was commuted to imprisonment.

One might note two things about the case. The fuss and the use of the Privy Council, is to some extent an indication of the growing importance of Eton. But it is more expressive of Henry VIII’s money troubles. The monasteries were dissolved partly on the grounds of their lascivious and scandalous behaviour; how much more monstrous was Udall’s exploitation of his rôle as guardian of the young—and in an institution still regarded as very close to the Church. It is likely that had Henry VIII not died in 1547 Eton would have been dissolved. The second point is that Udall was subsequently released and went on to become Headmaster of Westminster. Then, and for the next 270 odd years, such monstrous behaviour was, in fact, little regarded.

During the 17th century Eton, at least, went through a temporary improvement. For a while beating was not the automatic and invariable punishment, as it was under Udall and would be under Keate. Statutes were drawn up saying when beatings should be given—for breaking bounds, going to ale houses etc. At this time, the 1660s, smoking was made compulsory because it was thought to be a prophylactic against the plague. Thomas Hearne in his diaries describes Tom Rogers telling him that “he was never so much whipped in his life as he was one morning for not smoking”.

But in general, the violence continues unabated, unmitigated, almost jovial. One trouble with beating as a method of punishment is that it frequently gives pleasure to the master, and that pleasure can be overtly sexual. Sometimes it seemed the only thing that kept them alive. Richard Roberts (St. Paul’s 1769–1814) was scarcely more alive than his bust, “except when plying the cane; and on such occasions he was wonderfully active, as if inspired by new life …”. But, although many of the effects of beating, its disadvantages (and advantages) as a disciplinary tool, will emerge as we progress, I want to reserve a fuller discussion of that particular side, the sexual side, until the 19th century. It is then that a peculiar relish enters the descriptions, the involvement becomes deeper and more emotional, and also spreads out through the community, so that the whole school becomes caught up, gripped by an excitement which is horrified, morbid and delighted all at once; at the same time the frenzies of the master, beating “in a white heat”, often seem more personal and somehow sinister.

You do not find this in the 17th and 18th centuries. The atmosphere is brutal, certainly; but it is more open, less loaded. There was Gill of St. Paul’s (1608–35), who seemed to believe in a sort of divine right of beating. He would beat Old Paulines when they came down and misbehaved and once, when a stone came through the classroom window, rushed in a fury out into the street, seized the nearest passer-by, a Sir John D (John Aubrey tells the story), and beat him so severely he never dared go near the school again without an armed guard.

The power of masters was in these respects absolute. One reads again and again of coarse brutes able to do all but kill their pupils (and sometimes that too); men like Boyer of Christ’s Hospital, who simply whipped and punched to relieve his feelings. “I have known him double his knotty fist,” wrote Charles Lamb in a famous description, “at a poor trembling child (the maternal milk hardly dry upon its lips) with a ‘Sirrah, do you presume to set your wits at me?’.”

How could it go on so long, why did the parents tolerate it, why was it allowed?

The reasons are well known. We have already seen the continuing contribution of huge classes, low calibre masters, the intolerable boredom of the classics. More important was the attitude to children. Children were the fruit of original sin, they were defective adults whose sin was to be beaten out of them. And it followed that, until this had happened, they were scarcely company for adults. Parents didn’t on the whole seem to care what treatment they received provided they kept out of the way. This is another explanation of the huge stretch of time they spent away from home, even when roads began to improve. (It also explains why in the 18th and early 19th centuries running away was the worst crime. Sexual offences are scarcely mentioned.) But the principal reason was the age: sailors were frequently lashed to death, men were hanged for trifling offences and died of trifling diseases, the rich were cruel to the poor, and equally cruel to their own children. Schoolmasters were expected to be brutal; just how brutal is shown, paradoxically, by the legal limits designed to prevent their excesses. Burn’s Justice of the Peace in the late 18th century has this:

Nor were alternatives experimented with to any large extent. There were impositions of extra work and enforced roll calls; Christ’s Hospital tried solitary confinement. Here is Lamb again: