“House captains could cane. Hugh Luiggi (a founding member of Francis Brown 1937-40) remembered a boy caned for insulting the King by sticking his image upside down on a letter. Luiggi thought that caning, the preferred method of enforcing discipline at Corio, was weakened by its frequency and the lack of distinction in degree of […]

Sir James Darling, Headmaster: “After receiving gifts from the school and thanking them with his usual wit and power, the headmaster, with a touch of humour, to everyone’s delight, broke his cane and threw down his mortar board.” “Brian Jones thought that, because it was small, well-ordered and happy, the school of the 1920s was […]

Reverend Doctor Francis Brown, Headmaster: “Students felt he was almost as omnipotent as God, and nearly as distant except on Monday mornings, when a large contingent of backsliders knew his wrath at close quarters through the cane.” Mr E.T. Williams, Housemaster: “Ian Nicholson remembered ‘Billy Lop’ Williams quoting his favourite poem, ‘Drake’s Drum’, in one […]

“A delay like that would have saved Wilson some embarrassment at one swimming sports in the 1870s, when he noticed fearful bruises on the back (sic) and legs of young Ernest Jackson, and learnt to his horror that they were the marks of his own tawse. ‘I always bruised very easily’, Jackson wrote later.” 1920s: […]

“Although, as he told them, he was happy to trust them and risk being let down, and although his ideal when he ser out in 1863 was to rule by kindness, Wilson did beat boys. Those who lied or cheated were invariably caned. Among snippets of evidence about his practice there is T. Aylesbury Brown’s […]

“Gradually, though, Wilson had to become less demanding and even to use the tawse to support a weak master. He also abandoned his opposition to impositions and made detentions the most common punishment. Perhaps the school had grown too large for the enlightened methods he had been able to operate at the high school. For […]

“He had high standards and tried to insist on the principle, expressed in his 1863 prospectus, that boys were to be encouraged to take pleasure in their work by masters who also enjoyed what they were doing. Alas, what was natural to a gentle but commanding person like Wilson, a transparently sincere man who loved […]