Whips Incorporated

A Chastising Service of the 1880s laid bare

Historical recreation researched and written by Richard Manton, from Janus 38.

On 26 July 1889, an advertisement appeared in the Church Times. It was addressed to the parents of unruly daughters, to teachers of delinquent schoolgirls, to masters of female reformatories, and to those employers whose young women treated their superiors with insolence and contempt.

BIRCH RODS. — These useful articles, for which there is an increasing demand, may be had from the depot. Of different sizes. — Mrs. CLAPP, St. John’s-road, Clifton.

Mrs Clapp’s surname might have raised a smile, but it was as real as everything else about her. She ran a thriving business in the regency elegance of Bristol’s most prosperous suburb. Her advertisement might cause a flutter in the press of the 1980s but not a century ago when Victorian Values were firmly in the saddle. After all, if girls were to be birched, the birch-rods had to come from somewhere. Not for a moment would the Church Times have thought of refusing such an advertisement from so respectable a client.

And yet Mrs Clapp’s advertisement was the first hint of an even more thriving business whose headquarters was within easy whipping distance of her own. It was known as The Chastising Service, and the truth about it remains more bizarre than the wildest erotic fiction. Its existence was verified by the national press, by private business letters, brochures, and personal memoirs. We know the addresses at which it operated and the name of its mistress. We even know the minute details of the birchings and canings given to girls in its punishment rooms. And we know those details because the mistress published them proudly, to prove to her clients that the thrashings given to their girls were worth every penny of the considerable fees she charged.

There was, after all, nothing to be ashamed of. The Bristol Mercury praised her as an ‘estimable lady’. Referring to her methods, its correspondent thundered, ‘What after all is there so shocking about the discipline?’ What, after all? She and her assistants were merely spending their days — and part of their nights — birching, caning, whipping, the bare bottoms of girls and young women. Some of the culprits were adolescent schoolgirls, some were already in their twenties.

Back, for a moment, to the good Mrs Clapp. Those who replied to her advertisement received further details. She was able to supply birch-rods from 24 to 42 inches in length at 8d. each plus 3d. postage. She gave ample work to the rod-makers of the area and one family was able to boast of having practised the craft ‘for generations’. The several switches of each rod were guaranteed to be ‘thin and pliable’, and they could be ‘trimmed if required’. Mrs Clapp did not recommend trimming. Those wicked little buds and nodules would inflict such painful little bruises on the bottom of a sullen fifth-form girl that she would think twice before stepping out of line again.

Mrs Clapp was also able to supply a variety of leather tawses and bamboo canes, as well as whiplashes for young women who needed severe correction.

For the Do-It-Yourself chastiser, she had booklets with such titles as The Rod and Hints on the management of Untractable Girls. These proved to be best-sellers and from time to time she was writing to beg the patience of her customers while they were reprinted. Both titles were the work of none other than the mistress of the Chastising Service herself, Mrs Walter. She was the widow of a schoolmaster, Walter-Smith and it seems she had joined her maiden name to his ‘Smith’ during their marriage. Now she was plain Mrs Walter, described by one visitor as a black-stockinged and starch-uniformed disciplinarian.

Mrs Walter’s books were essentially an advertisement for her own business. She explained that her talents were always at the service of those who ‘have not the necessary patience or nerve’ to whip the bottoms of their girls with true severity.

Anyone who would be deterred by screams or struggles from carrying out what has been begun, should never attempt whipping, because unless it is thoroughly done, ground is lost, and the girl will rejoice in her triumph.

Mrs Walter was certainly in a better position to judge from experience than most of her readers. By this time her Chastising Service for girls and young women occupied two very imposing establishments. There was a regency villa, Clifford House in Oakfield Road, Clifton, and a London address at 10, Porchester Gardens, Bayswater. Clifton remained the headquarters but her fame had spread far by now. Sometimes she went to whip by appointment at Oxford and other towns but she had little time for engagements outside Clifton or Bayswater. She had, as she said, ‘a considerable number of clients in London whose daughters she chastised.’

Anyone who imagined Mrs Walter as a lip-smacking lesbian sadist who would do anything to get her hands — and whips — on a girl’s bare bottom, was due for a shock. She was a businesswoman to her fingertips. A single whipping given to a girl brought to Porchester Gardens for the purpose would cost between one and three pounds, according to the severity and length of time. ‘My fee has never been less than twenty shillings,’ she told one applicant — this at a time when thirty shillings a week was a living wage for many.

The only cut-price thrashing given to a girl was when a culprit was merely being delivered to Porchester Gardens in order to be taken to Clifton for a period of obedience-training which would last six, twelve, eighteen months or even longer. As Mrs Walter explained, she liked to ‘punish her previous to starting,’ thus ensuring good behaviour on the journey. But for this initial bottom-whipping she charged a mere half-guinea. ‘If your daughter is coming to me,’ she wrote to one parent, ‘I should charge 10s. 6d. for a whipping previous to starting.’

When a girl was under training in the villa at Clifton, the fee was £80 a year for those aged between sixteen and nineteen, £100 a year for those who were twenty or over. ‘I must, of course, be liberally recompensed for the trouble and anxiety which these girls give me,’ Mrs Walter added firmly.

And recompensed she surely was. With 20 girls in residence and dozens of one-off thrashings by appointment, Mrs Walter was pulling in ten or twenty times the average working-wage of her contemporaries. Perhaps it was her untiring efforts with the young women in their twenties which she felt deserved such recognition. In November 1889 she remarked that she had just given 30 lashes — ‘cuts with a birch rod’ — across the bare bottom of a troupe of these older girls.

As she mopped her bespangled brow after her exertions, Mrs Walter surely felt that she gave value for money. Whether it was a fifth-form girl’s sullenness to be cured, or a working girl’s insolence to be curbed, or a servant to be made more appreciative of her master’s ‘kindness’, the Chastising Service mistress offered a stock guarantee. She said: ‘I could soon make her amenable to your wishes.’

She was businesslike, but not entirely mercenary. When Mrs Heaton sent a girl to Clifton and paid six months’ fees in advance, Mrs Walter responded by offering to throw in the initial birching in Porchester Gardens at no extra charge. ‘Ready money deserves discount,’ she wrote.

It was clear that Mrs Walter was having the time of her life thrashing all those nubile bare bottoms — but she never thrashed without payment. She had no need to. England’s best were rushing forward with fistfuls of money begging her to take it. Had some dirty-minded cad suggested that she was a lewd or perverted women, he would have found himself engulfed in a blizzard of libel writs. Her prospectus had a list of patrons and moral guarantors. They included the Dean of Lincoln, the Archdeacon of Huntingdon and a full ‘Barchester Towers’ cast of minor clergy, led by the Reverend and Honourable Hanbury Tracy of Frome. Colonel Miller led the military patrons. There were three doctors, a colonial governor in the shape of John Green of Paramaraboo, and a host of others. The female sex was there in the person of Lady Rothkirk, two ladies of the manor, and a pair of respectable (and wealthy) dames from Chepstow and Clifton itself. So, who’s a dirty-minded pervert now?

Try going to the gendarmerie of Clifton or Bayswater in 1889 and suggesting a raid on Mrs Walter’s premises. You might be lucky if you suffered no worse than being locked up for your own safety.

The problem, in the first place, was to get anywhere near Mrs Walter. She arrived in Porchester Gardens to find the house almost under siege by those who wanted to bring girls to her. One newspaper correspondent, lured by so sensational an event, wrote that ‘it was difficult to get more than a few minutes conversation with her, there were so many waiting for an audience.’ Ever the shrewd business woman, Mrs Walter introduced a fee of half a guinea for each initial ‘consultation’. And still the crowds surged towards Bayswater.

Like any conscientious disciplinarian, Mrs Walter kept a punishment register. ‘A book in which her flogging engagements are registered,’ the press called it. Like a school timetable, it had punishments slotted in for every hour of the day at Clifton. They were said to be very ‘numerous’. Schoolgirl birchings after breakfast, teenage canings after lunch, whipping of young women in their twenties after dinner — and plenty to keep the mistress going between meals. For her own sake, it is to be hoped that Mrs Walter enjoyed her chosen calling.

Anyone who imagines that the goings-on in the punishment room were a dark and shameful secret has yet to understand Mrs Walter, or indeed the mores of the era. She was proud of what she did and she told the world in great detail. It was her best advertisement. The more she told, the greater was the crush round Porchester Gardens and the more frequent the arrival of an apprehensive adolescent schoolgirl, or a strapping young wench, at Clifford House in Clifton.

For the select few, Mrs Walter even offered conducted tours of the punishment room. When a girl’s bare bottom was under the birch, cane or whiplash, only the mistress and her helpers would be in the room, as a rule. Yet it was easy enough to arrange that the visitors should peep and overhear the proceedings. Indeed, for the truly favoured, Mrs Walter even provided lunch as well.

There were, of course, more serious cases to be dealt with. It might be that some strapping young trollop of nineteen or twenty denounced the mistress as an old cow and invited her to do her worst. In October 1889, Mrs Walter wrote of the challenge involved in ‘breaking in’ such a girl and hinted at a third establishment, near Minehead, where such robust and rebellious young wenches might expect a very hard time indeed. The mistress was prepared to use quite exceptional severity and wrote that she must ‘not be restricted in any way’. This was a golden rule but it ensured results. ‘None of my girls have been more attached to me than those whom I have been obliged to discipline severely. They have a great respect for those who can master them.’

And then, in a wild surrealistic aside, the mistress adds that ‘special violin lessons’ can be included in the regime for a small extra charge.

Visitors were not permitted when some strapping young wench was to be broken in. On such occasions, however, there might well be some of Mrs Walter’s more enthusiastic patrons — military tanners, perhaps — who would insist on being present to lend moral support. We shall come to that later.

For those who were merely her guests, Mrs Walter began by leading them into the punishment room after lunch. The high-ceilinged drawing-room of the villa, adapted for this purpose could be easily soundproofed by thick curtains and shutters. There were chairs and sofas but they had been placed for bending over, kneeling over, and lying upon. A selection of leather tawses, birch-rods, canes and whips were laid out neatly at one side. Pride of place went to a custom-built table, which the mistress specified as being ‘a strong narrow table’ with adjustable attachments. How much of the Victorian furniture-making trade was devoted to the production of such gems as this? A number of cushions could be fastened on the table, either to support the belly of a girl who bent over at one end of it or else to raise the hips and backside of a young woman lying at full length over them.

Describing her method in her brochure, Mrs Walter explained that the girl would be positioned as necessary, hands held together under the table and legs also firmly together. Then her skirt and knickers would be removed. By a curious Freudian slip, the brochure misprints ‘knickers’ as ‘kinkers’. However with the young lady stripped and bending, ‘the orthodox surface is found at the right angle for punishing.’

Twenty-four strokes appears to have been par for the course when the girl was sixteen to nineteen years old, 30 strokes for those in their twenties. This compares with the routine 36 strokes of the cane given by reformatory masters like James Miles across the bare bottom-cheeks of an adolescent tomboy such as Elaine Cox.

‘Taking my birch,’ said Mrs Walter, ‘I measure my distance and, standing at the side, proceed to strike.’ The strokes were given with what she called ‘full force’. Though she began with ten or twelve, ‘each stroke differently placed’ across the girl’s backside, ‘I begin on the other side and work back again.’

It may seem that her girls got off lightly by comparison with those in the reformatory, until one reads Mrs Walter’s ‘small print’. Few of her girls could stand two dozen strokes of the birch across their bare buttocks — given at the force of a prison thrashing — without yelling. And, as the mistress explained knowingly, ‘For screams, increased strokes must be given.’

In other words the thrashing would continue — on and on — until Mrs Walter was completely satisfied with the state of the girl’s bottom — and mind. And Mrs Walter was a very hard lady to satisfy. Her achievement, at one level, was to privatise the business of chastisement, offering a fee-paying service in competition with the likes of James Miles in the public sector.

A visitor to Clifford House would glimpse far more than the mere furnishings of the punishment room. Mrs Walter never overlooked a chance to advertise her system. Perhaps the most intriguing sight for a man was to see those girls whom he had encountered previously in the world outside. He found them now in such altered circumstances.

There was Rachel, a sullen adolescent fifth-former, often seen on her way to and from school. Gym-slipped and grey-stockinged, she greeted every courtesy with sulky resentment. The blue eyes in the fine-boned fair-skinned face, the brown hair bobbed and tinted reddish bronze, showed her for the little madam that she was.

A glance into the waiting-room showed a very changed Rachel, after six months under discipline and with another year to go. When Mrs Walter decided to thrash, she first told a girl of her punishment and then made the culprit wait two or three hours in mounting expectation.

Rachel was made to wait in a state of undress without her tie and blouse, her gym-slip and stockings. Even Rachel’s fifth-form knickers had gone. She wore only a short and snug-fitting singlet of white cotton which left her bare from the waist down. The pale and puppyish softness of Rachel’s bottom-cheeks seemed a study in tensing and agitation as she waited in a panic to be whipped. That haughty young face was now so woebegone and self-pitying, the reddish bob of her hair bowed in dismay. As the dreaded hour approached, the visitor watched Rachel tensing her bare schoolgirl bottom-cheeks together, her face fretful and downcast. Sometimes she touched her buttocks as if to soothe their tingling apprehension as she walked about the room. Then she looked over her shoulder at her bare young backside in the mirror, as if piteously inspecting it for a last time in its pale, unblemished state.

Rachel’s breathless agitation at hearing the thrashing-table moved into place in the next room was followed by the dread summons. The guest peeped to watch the sulky fifth-form nymph with bobbed hair bowed and moving with such demure bare-legged modesty. A moment more and Rachel was bending over the end of the table, lying forward, hands firmly together under it. The slight puppy-fat of her adolescent buttocks made a taut but womanly target. Fifteen minutes of anguish followed, the bamboo smacking sharply across Rachel’s backside until even its impacts were drowned by her shrill and frantic pleading.

An hour later the scene would have changed. Rachel was lying arse-upwards over the sofa in the ante-room, blinking away the last tears, the state of her bottom-cheeks suggesting that she had just risen from sitting a long time on a cane chair.

In the punishment room, a girl of nineteen lies bottom-upwards as well. Lisa, known as Liz for short, is on her belly over the cushions, wrists stretched to the forward corners of the table supporting her, feet tightly together at the other end.

Lisa with the rather frizzy fair tresses overlapping her collar, her narrow blue eyes and pale, open face would also have been familiar. But what brought her here from the fancy-goods counter of the shop where she worked? What misdemeanour gave her employer the power to make her choose between the Chastising Service and the reformatory? That we shall never know.

Lisa’s knickers and skirt have been removed. Her backside has a wider but lithe and agile shape in this posture. The mistress chooses a truly wicked birch to give poor Liz thirty strokes across her bare backside. Three smooth willow switches, a yard long and quiveringly supple, bound together at the handle.

Fresh from the well-salted water, the birch is touched across Lisa’s resilient young bum-cheeks. She gives a little gasp and her buttocks tighten at the cold wet droplets of brine. Mrs Walter smiles and makes her wait for it. The mistress wedges another cushion under Lisa’s fair-fleeced loins to raise the girl’s rear cheeks more fully. Terror fills the broad innocence of Lisa’s 19-year-old face. Thrash! goes the birch and Lisa shrieks at the sheer intensity of the smart. The mistress cuts this way and that across the surging, writhing cheeks of Lisa’s bottom. Screams are answered by sharp reprimands, pleading is countered by savage lashing. With all the extra strokes she earns, 19-year-old Lisa spends a long afternoon on the wooden flogging-table, her buttocks bright with scorching stripes.

But Rachel and Lisa are merely the overture to the grand drama, in which Mrs Walter specialized. The true challenge facing her was Noreen — an insolent well-built working-girl, the despair of her family, her teachers and now her employers. Noreen at 21 was a strapping young wench with firm strong thighs and a bottom whose cheeks were full and broad without being flabby. Her lank dark hair was cut at collar-length and fringed. Insolence and resentment marked the firm features of her pale face and her brown eyes. In denim skirt or working-trousers, resembling jeans, this young trollop had a look of defiance and even of violence.

For Noreen, the Chastising Service arranged a special occasion with as many of its patrons present as possible. Mr Wintle, an eager disciplinarian was to thrash the young tart’s bare bottom. To see Noreen bending over in tight denim trousers — her lank brown hair flopping forward, her bottom-cheeks full, firm and broad was to recognise her as a perfect subject for discipline. Mrs Walter and two stalwart female servants marched her to the punishment room, where Noreen was to be held bending over a low step-ladder. The frame of it would support this well-made girl and make it easier to curb her struggles.

There was a hush of expectation among the patrons whose sense of stern moral duty had brought them to witness the spectacle. Noreen bare-bottomed! The strapping young cheeks of Noreen’s arse under the bamboo, the birch, the snakeskin lash! How the portly middle-aged gentry must have quickened at the promise of it!

They were ready to begin soon after lunch. Knowing how defiant and impudent Noreen might be, they had of course set aside the whole afternoon to have her bending bare-bottomed over the heavy wooden step-ladder. Before the long session was over, they would get to know Noreen’s bottom very well indeed…

The two female assistants had secured Noreen firmly over the low step-ladder, holding her legs together on one side and her arms at full stretch down the other. Flicking back the loose collar-length of her lank dark hair, the girl was able to twist her face round, her brown eyes shining with anger and her jaw firm with defiance. It seemed that the strength of her young body was reflected in the determination of her face as she shook the narrow fringe of hair and stared in contempt at the onlookers.

She was allowed to retain her white blouse during the tanning. Her working-trousers were another matter. The mistress appeared and walked across to the low step-ladder on which the 21-year-old rebel was positioned. Smooth and pale blue, the denim was tight as drum-skin on the robust mounds of Noreen’s buttocks as she bent over. Mrs Walter ran her hand lightly over the curves and then stood back. The central seam of the seat, now drawn deep and taut, divided Noreen’s bottom-cheeks so that she seemed to display her rear view in a most suggestive manner.

While she strained against the hold of the two assistants, the mistress undid her at the waist, easing the working-trousers down the strong young thighs and pulling them off. Noreen’s knickers, tight-fitting and made of white webbed cotton, came next. Though the girl still glared back at her mistress, the first glimmer of apprehension showed in the insolent brown eyes under the narrow fringe.

Noreen’s bottom, bare and pale, appeared big-cheeked in this posture but without the blemish of surplus fat. Her buttocks were broad and sturdy as she bent tightly over the top of the stand, wrestling vainly against the combined grip of the two assistants. A fury of humiliation brought two spots of colour to the points of her broad cheekbones as the onlookers craned forward to have a good look at the most intimate aspects of her rear view. Despite her anger, Noreen was bent over so tightly that she was obliged to show them everything they were eager to see.

‘Mr Wintle will thrash you now, Noreen,’ the mistress said. ‘Thirty strokes with the prison cane across those strapping young bottom-cheeks. All the ladies and gentlemen sitting here this afternoon have suffered your insolence in one way or another. They’ll want to hear you scream… Noreen, you young slut! Don’t tense the cheeks of your bottom like that! Bend properly!… When Mr Wintle is satisfied with you, you’ll thank him for giving you a punishment lesson. You’ll kiss his hand obediently and you’ll kiss the rod that has thrashed your bottom. Do you understand me?’

Noreen looked back, dismay and anger contending in her face at the sound of these words which cut so directly against the grain of her being. The onlookers smiled and some of them laughed.

‘You fat-arsed young trollop, Noreen! You won’t be in a hurry to offer impudence to your elders and betters again after this!’

‘Noreen, you young slut! Get tighter over the ladder! Show us a big-bottomed view!’

Presently the hilarity subsided and the men who watched seemed to stiffen with expectation. Mr Wintle came forward and slashed through the air several times with the long whippy bamboo which he carried. Despite her anger, Noreen’s buttocks flinched visibly at the menace of the sound. Clearly, she was not completely bereft of a sense of imagination.

‘Thirty strokes, Noreen! Keep your bottom still!’

Mr Wintle made a great play of pulling the rear of the blouse up above the young woman’s waist so that the broad pale cheeks of Noreen’s backside would be properly bare and nothing could interfere with his aim. The other men and women, pillars of the community, smiled privately at each other as he fussed with these adjustments to her clothing. In his movements, Mr Wintle’s hands spent much of their time fondling and feeling the strapping young cheeks of Noreen’s bottom. How often, as she bent to some task or other, had he longed to do this? And how often had she dismissed his admiration by a contemptuous backward glance and a flick of her fringe.

These recollections imbued the pre-punishment proceedings with an almost excruciating piquancy for him. Over hill and down dale Mr Wintle’s fingers wandered until he was satisfied at last. Noreen’s fury at having to submit to his inspection shone in her eyes and glowed on the points of her cheekbones. Gradually robbing her of all self-control, they drew her hair into a collar-length pony-tail, Mrs Walter looping an elastic band to hold it in place, so that the spectators could watch the girl’s face more easily while she was being tanned. Mr Wintle grew hard and stern, heart beating fast as he gazed on the two broad sturdy cheeks of Noreen’s arse, perfectly postured to incite him to inflict the most extreme chastisement. When he touched the cane across her behind, aiming the first stroke, Noreen’s bottom-crack compressed to a thin tight line. For all her bravado, the moment of truth had come.

There was no question of beginning gently or giving her a chance to get used to the atrocious smart of the prison cane across her bare buttocks. Mr Wintle’s lips were set firmly and his eyes gleamed as he brought the bamboo lashing down across the sturdy rear cheeks. The anguish of the impact seemed to paralyse Noreen by its swelling intensity. Then, even before the throbbing pain had begun to subside, he brought the cane down again with a crack that made the walls ring. Noreen gasped, struggling to hold back her cries in her defiance of the onlookers. But a plum-coloured welt began to show across her bum-cheeks.

Mr Wintle smiled to himself, teasing the young woman by measuring the next across that very place. He thrashed Noreen again with such skill that the pain of it had her up on her toes, heels well clear of the wooden step on which she stood.

‘Bend right over, Noreen. Properly!’ one of the women said, as the young wench tried to draw her cheeks in and tense them together. ‘Mr Wintle wants to excel himself, I’m sure. He can’t do that unless you round those big rear cheeks out for him!’

This caused considerable amusement among the others. Their delighted laughter made a frightful counter point to the blaze in her arse. But Mr Wintle knew the answer to the problem. He touched the cane low across Noreen’s bottom, just along the light crease dividing her buttocks from her thighs. With all his force, he thrashed across that sensitively low stripe. Once! Twice! Thrice! The strokes came with cruel rapidity, splitting the air before exploding with maniacal intensity into her defenceless flesh.

Though she was a strongly-made girl, Noreen screamed at the appalling smart of the bamboo as it was doubled and then redoubled and then multiplied again. Her robust bare legs smoothed desperately together in their writhing, her hands tugged vainly, and her bottom-halves broke into a rump dance, her soundly-constructed buttocks surging and rounding most fetchingly.

Among the men and women there was a sense of relief at the wild cry which broke from Noreen, as if they had feared that she might defy them by total silence during the thirty strokes. There was also a sudden and dramatic silence among them, each onlooker feeling a personal and more intense excitement at having Noreen in this predicament. These were moments of revelation. Mr Wintle was standing in a somewhat unusual manner as if he had now realised that the trousers he was wearing were a size too small at the front, as if in fact he now felt positively uncomfortable in them.

Noreen’s bottom-cheeks, full and broad, soon bore a dozen raised imprints of bamboo. The short pony-tail of lank dark hair brushed her collar as she twisted her face round to them. There was desperation in the brown eyes but the firm young jaw still showed her defiance of them. The onlookers met her wildness with smiles of wicked promise. Their eyes were bright with eagerness and their tongues running on their lips in anticipation of the excitement to come.

Mr Wintle began to cane with vicious accuracy across Noreen’s backside. A few times, when the cane missed and caught the backs of her thighs, there could be little doubt that this had been intentional on his part.

Noreen yelled at every stroke but these outbursts were only in part screams and in part a shout of anger at what was being done to her. Then a low stroke on her bum-cheeks, under their overhang, forced shrillness and furious writhing. One of the men chuckled loudly:

‘Did that make your toes curl, Noreen? I think it did! Give her two more like that, Mr Wintle, if you please!’

And so he did. An exact mathematician might have queried the accuracy of the count, so far as the number of strokes was concerned. But with a strapping young trollop like Noreen, bare-bottomed over the ladder for a well-deserved thrashing, it was only to be expected that disciplinary zeal should take precedence over mathematics. Red as two tomatoes, the full cheeks of Noreen’s bottom contorted and rolled before the onlookers, as if she had been a bride trying to entice her groom to their honeymoon bed by the seductive writhing of her spanked backside.

At last Mr Wintle paused. He came forward and stood in front of the girl, looking down at her with a quiet smile as if displaying his resolve to her. The mistress came up behind Noreen and touched a punishment strap lightly to the girl’s robust young buttocks which felt hot as fire, with searing flames corresponding in position to the weals embossed by bamboo.

‘Thank Mr Wintle for thrashing you, Noreen,’ she said with gentle menace. ‘Kiss his hand. Then kiss the cane that’s tanned your backside for you! We’ll teach you humility here, you young trollop!’

Noreen flicked aside the short pony-tail of her dark hair and her brown eyes shone with fury at the suggested humiliation. She ground out her refusal with jaw tight and teeth almost clenched in her anger. Mrs Walter smiled and the onlookers grinned delightedly at the fun they would have with Noreen now. Already she was writhing and gasping to contain her anguish.

‘Very well, Noreen,’ the mistress said. ‘I shall ask you again in an hour’s time. By then, I promise you, even the lightest breeze caressing your bottom-cheeks will make you flinch. Ah, that scares you a little, I think! One whole hour, Noreen, with no chance to make amends to Mr Wintle until it is quite over!’

The mistress turned to the onlookers.

‘Be so good as to go to the cupboard and make your choice,’ she said. ‘Mr Wintle has the bamboo. You will find a birch-rod, a whip of knotted cord, and the pony-lash with the tail of woven snakeskin.’

By this time, there were unseen eyes and ears just outside the room, at every window and keyhole, every crack in the boarding or chink between the stones. Several of the older women who served Mrs Walter watched with growing enthusiasm and a deeper flush in their cheeks. The two grooms and the stable-boy, the butler and the porter, had worked themselves up to a fever of excitement, each with an eye bulging at a handy crack or chink.

There were others who could only apply an ear to the thin partition wall and listen, gaping and grinning, to the sounds which followed. They heard the measured swish-whack-swish of the long birch cuts across the broad cheeks of Noreen’s 21-year-old bottom. The young woman yelled as much with fury as with the naked smart of the lashes. Then came the short impacts of bamboo across Noreen’s bare buttock-mounds with a whip! whip! whip! Eagerly the voyeurs and eavesdroppers listened to see if it would be twelve strokes, but it was two dozen… thirty… and more… Mrs Walter was determined to break Noreen of her disobedience.

Now it was the vicious smack of a leather training-lash across Noreen’s backside with its cheeks blushing deeply. Then the crack of whipcord, more smacks of leather, bamboo, birch, spanking strap, and always the chiding voice of the mistress.

‘Noreen, you young strumpet! Keep that backside of yours still!… Will… you… keep… it… still… Ah, the whip gives you a taste for obedience, does it? Right over the ladder, Noreen… Those big bottom-cheeks facing up for more discipline!… We’ll have obedience from you, Noreen, you young trollop! You may depend on it!’

At the end of an hour the disciplinarians stood back and surveyed their handiwork. Noreen, her broad young buttocks scarlet and thighs streaked to match, lay panting over the ladder as if from some great exertion. The state of Noreen’s bottom-cheeks was such that even the chastisers looked at one another with smiles which combined amusement and unease. Now Mr Wintle stood before the rebellious young woman.

‘Thank Mr Wintle and kiss his hand, Noreen!’ said the mistress.

Noreen lifted her firm fair-skinned face, the brown eyes under her narrow fringe of dark hair watching Mr Wintle. He held his hand out. Noreen put her lips to it — and then sank her strong young teeth into the flesh between his forefinger and thumb. In a fury of humiliation she held on several seconds until Mr Wintle staggered back with a hiss of agony, the blood welling and running from the wound.

A silence of incredulity fell upon those in the punishment room. For a lesser offence, they would have picked up their whips and given Noreen’s arse a second helping of leather and bamboo. But this! It was a crime so monstrous that they could not at once devise a sufficient punishment. It was hard for any of them to believe what their eyes had seen.

Mrs Walter’s philosophy came to their aid. ‘Never punish when angry.’ Of course, Noreen was in big, big trouble now. The sort of discipline which she would undergo for the next few months was best not talked about publicly. It would be inflicted during a long period of training in obedience at that other mysterious house which the Chastising Service owned in a remote part of Devonshire moorland. Next day, accompanied by Mrs Walter and her two uncompromising female assistants, Noreen would be taken there in a closed carriage and put under the training of the man or woman who ran that establishment.

Make no mistake about it, life was not always easy for the chastisers. If Mrs Walter sent Noreen back to her employer regretting that she could do no more with the girl, the mistress would have committed professional suicide. Who was going to spend large sums of money merely to have a milliner or servant as insolent as ever? No one would fee Mrs Walter if he found a sullen fifth-form girl still sulky or resentful. The credibility of the Chastising Service was at stake.

Without being a mind-reader, one can guess Mrs Walter’s reaction. Next day a closed carriage drove out of Oakfield Road on its way to that remote moorland manor house, which was the last resort for young women of Noreen’s kind. A stalwart assistant sat either side of the girl on the buttoned-leather seat. Though the carriage doors were locked, the coachman and his boy listened carefully for the first sound of any disturbance within. Noreen’s employer had paid good money and Mrs Walter had promised that the girl would bend to his will easily by the time that her training was over.

On arrival, the lodge-keeper opened the double gates and the carriage passed through, following the long driveway which led to the well-protected house, a mile from the nearest road. It would be twelve, perhaps eighteen, months or longer before 21-year-old Noreen left that establishment again. In December 1889, in the newspaper Truth, George Atchley of Tyndall’s Park described it as a ‘training institution for unruly and unmanageable girls’.

Unlike the famous James Miles, who had fifty or more girls in his reformatory, the Governor of this institution may have had no more than a dozen ‘hard cases’. The new arrival would be put to work and his first encounter with her might be as Noreen, with cloth and bucket, mopped over the patterned ceramic tiles of the conservatory floor. As she knelt at her labour, her shape was well outlined by the close-fitting white blouse and the even tighter fit of thin blue denim working-trousers on her broad young hips and firm thighs.

No doubt the sturdy young woman thought she would still get the better of the man who stood over her. Unrepentant insolence showed in the impatient flick of her lank dark hair. Under its narrow fringe, her brown eyes slanted at him with contempt. Defiance moulded her firm young chin and fair-skinned profile. Standing behind her, as she sat on her heels mopping the tiles, the Governor approved the straight and strong line of her young back. The thin blue denim was smooth and tight over the strapping young cheeks of Noreen’s bottom.

Noreen’s bottom!

That is what interested him most of all. As she was obliged to lift her hips from her heels and go forward on all fours to mop the tiles, he studied this full rear view with care. Noreen’s bottom-cheeks, as if in tight jeans, were broad and firm, full but not flabby. Sensing his eyes upon this aspect of her, Noreen paused flicking aside her fringe and looking back at him with distaste. But the Governor could afford to smile.

Noreen’s bottom! Yes, indeed!

‘In the mood for some obedience-training, Noreen? You’ll begin tomorrow morning.’

There was no hurry. Noreen would be at his disposal for many, many months to come. Her education was completed by the books she was made to read and the extracts she was required to copy out and learn. They were all upon the same topic. Every week, in their pages, she must revisit such scenes. Their illustrations hung on every wall of the room in which she slept. Noreen would wake each morning to see these prints of a reformatory punishment room with birching-block. A sturdy adolescent fifth-former over it on all fours, her buttocks bare. Stripes of the cane — and the whip still to come — on the tomboy cheeks of Elaine Cox’s bottom.

The pictures on the wall represented what lay in store for Noreen herself, day by day. Immediately after breakfast she was required to face the rail at the foot of the bed and bend over tightly, head on the counterpane. Her denim skirt or working trousers were stripped off by the two assistants. Noreen’s knickers came down and the Governor entered, lips tightening at the sight of such a big-cheeked rear view. Those outside the door heard the familiar dialogue.

‘Hands away from your bottom, Noreen!… Yes, I think it’s better if the two mistresses hold you… Now, I shall require to inspect that backside of yours thoroughly, Noreen… No clenching, you young strumpet!… And now the punishment strap, Noreen… A taste of leather across those fat young bottom-cheeks…’

The eavesdroppers counted ten, twenty, thirty… They heard Noreen gasp and springs of the bed jangle. At last they heard her yell. But the strap continued to whack! and smack! pitilessly. The Governor came out at last. And now it was a woman’s voice which said:

‘A tanning with the slipper heel on those bare rear cheeks, Noreen!’

The keyhole offered a big-bottomed view of Noreen over the rail, buttocks blushing like fire, the muddy print of the slipper heel repeatedly embossed.

For failing to thank the disciplinarians, Noreen spent an afternoon bottom-upwards over the study sofa. As the clock struck two, the Governor said, ‘Lie right forward over the cushions, Noreen. Must we hold your hands? Very well.’

The bamboo cut the air twenty or thirty times, smacking hard on Noreen’s broad bottom-cheeks. Wild cries broke at last. Then there was silence until the clock chimed half-past two.

‘Don’t twist your bottom aside, Noreen! Surely you didn’t think it would be over so quickly! Those bare cheeks are still too pale!’

Again the rhythmic thrashing — and again every time the clock struck until tea-time. That evening, the Governor flexed his long pony-switch and followed Noreen to her room. During her long stay the little clues as to the young woman’s training were seen here and there.

Noreen’s knickers discarded on the study floor and a broken bamboo nearby. Splintered birch-twigs in Noreen’s bedroom. Noreen’s knickers on the conservatory floor and a whip hidden behind a plant-pot. Lights burning late in study or washroom, cracks and cries in rhythmic sequence in the middle of the night…

From time to time, no doubt, Mrs Walter appeared. Noreen and the others boasted frantically of their reformed characters and their promises to be obedient. But the Governor had a private word with the mistress and Mrs Walter left alone.

There were, of course, scenes of great drama. Noreen, her big-cheeked bottom bare, bent tightly over a high stool. Noreen’s backside was striped and grazed by a ferocious birching given during the previous night. And now the Governor’s assistant was trailing a wicked lash between his fingers, studying the tempting target. By this time Noreen shrieked out her promises of obedience to her mistress, yelling out her wishes to be good and begging for a chance to prove herself back at Clifford House.

Even for a big-bottomed girl of 21, the birching had been extreme. And now the assistant seemed stiff with excitement as he tested the lash. But Mrs Walter, no doubt, met the desperation in Noreen’s brown eyes with a knowing smile as she shook her head, refusing the girl’s request. No wonder the soundly-birched cheeks of Noreen’s bottom writhed in uncontrollable panic as she shouted that she could not bear even the breath of the whip upon them in her present state. And one can understand Mrs Walter smiling more broadly, knowing that Noreen would be in a position where the Governor would make her bear it anyway!

That night, at about midnight, there were certainly footsteps heard along the bedroom corridors. The light went on briefly in Noreen’s room and the Governor’s voice was heard too. Then came two sets of footsteps, before the light of the tiled washroom went on and burnt for two or three hours.

Next morning, the cleaner found that room in some disorder. He saw that a heavy stool for kneeling over had been left at the centre of the wide tiled floor. Several cigarette butts — the Governor’s brand — were trodden out on the tiles. Close by lay a discarded pair of Noreen’s knickers. As the old cleaner eagerly picked up this trophy and stuffed it in his pocket he saw on the polished wood of the stool the tell-tale scratches of frantic finger nails. He swept up the cigarette-butts, along with a dozen fragments of splintered bamboo, a scrap of frayed leather braiding, and a loop of sash-cord which had had to be knotted at regular intervals.

His eye caught a piece of paper wadded in a gap of the wall tiles. It was a secret note from Noreen to her boyfriend, begging for rescue by any means, and a postscript pleading with the old cleaner to post it. He dared not, of course. Indeed, he could imagine what had taken place in that room after midnight and soon felt randy at the thoughts of it. Should he destroy the note or take it to the Governor? To report it would ensure that the stool got plenty of kneeling over in the secret hours of night!

In his place, what would you have done? To destroy the note would risk another attempted escape. To report it would incur a degree of discipline for Noreen’s bottom beyond anything known in a reformatory of the day.

You would not make your decision in the abstract, but while observing Noreen as she bends to some task or other. What a strongly-built girl she is! She flicks back the lank dark hair showing the insolence in her brown eyes, the defiance in her firm and fair-skinned features. Is it to be pardon or punishment? The jeans-like denim working-trousers are drawn taut and smooth as she bends. Her thighs are sturdy but quite trim. Would it be the end of the world if some of the strokes caught her across the backs of them? The denim is strained smooth over the broadened mounds of Noreen’s buttocks as she bends. Certainly she is well-made for discipline. And yet it would be very severe. The stout central seam of the denim seat is drawn deep and tight between the cheeks of Noreen’s bottom as she weeds the beds, parting the two broad curves suggestively.

This is the scene before you as you decide. To the right lies the incinerator. To the left, the Governor’s office. If that is your choice, many frantic hours after midnight lie in store for Noreen’s backside. You would see the washroom light burning from your room. Perhaps you might even listen at the door. Or should you take pity on her already appalling plight and keep the note as a memento of her sufferings?

Unfortunately there is no compromise possible. Either Noreen gets away with it or undergoes nightly punishment-sessions which would cause amazement even in a reformatory. The choice is yours as you view the strapping young cheeks of Noreen’s backside.

Which is it to be?

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Historical Documentation

Last page of Mrs Walter’s Prospectus, 1889:

My first object when a girl is placed with me is to show her, kindly but firmly, that I must be implicitly obeyed. It is always a good plan to rule by moral suasion if possible. When that has been fairly tried and fails, then it is positively necessary to use some other means of making the girl obey.

First I warn of the consequences of repeated faults; then, when a direct act of disobedience, a lie, or very serious fault shows itself, I tell her that presently I shall punish. Never birch when angry. During the interval she thinks over her fault. I make preparations. These consist in having ready a strong narrow table, straps (waist-band with sliding straps, anklets, and wristlets), cushions, and a good, long, pliable birch rod, telling her to prepare by removing her dress, kinkers, & c., and putting on the dressing-gown (hind part before). Then I talk seriously to her, show the nature of the fault, and the need of punishment as a cure. Next I put on the waist-band, after having told her that if she submits quietly no one need know; if she struggles I must call in help (girls generally prefer to be quiet). Placing her at the end of the table (on which there are cushions to protect the person), I turn her body over the table, and fasten the straps underneath it. Then I fasten the knees together, wrists the same, unless I anticipate a struggle — then I use anklets and wristlets, and fasten the limbs to the legs of the table. This really takes less time to do than to write about. Unfastening the dressing-gown, the orthodox surface is found at the right angle for punishing. Taking the birch, I measure my distance, and, standing at the side, proceed to strike slowly but firmly. By moving gently forward each stroke is differently placed, and six strokes may be enough if well given with full force. If the fault has been such as to need severe correction, then I begin on the other side and work back again. For screams increased strokes must be given. If a girl tries very hard indeed to bear it bravely, then, perhaps, I give ten instead of twelve.

Directly it is finished I cover up the part exposed, unfasten the girl, and, finding her probably much subdued, help to resolutions of amendment. If this birching has been judiciously and conscientiously administered, the girl will bear against the operation no resentment, but be ready to ‘kiss and be friends’.

After allowing the culprit a little time to compose herself and re-dress, I expect her to join the others, and no mention of any kind is made of the punishment, unless future misconduct makes it necessary, and this is not often.

Birching is an extraordinary thing, not an every-day work, therefore care must be taken that the operator has the proper nerve and patience for the operation. Mothers are the proper persons to whip girls; but if they have not the necessary nerve, then it is better to appoint a deputy.

After this serious business is over, much steady patience is needed, for a birching is no use whatever if a girl is to be petted again and allowed to do just as she likes. She must be under firm, kind discipline. None of my girls have been more attached to me than those whom I have been obliged to discipline severely. They have a great respect for those who can master them and who do not taunt them with past misdeeds. Efforts at amendment must be encouraged, and those having the charge of girls must not expect to reform girls all at once. ‘Rome was not built in a day.’ The old Adam will some times show itself, and for checking his work nothing is so useful as a birch rod judiciously used.

Two extracts from the pamphlet entitled The Rod:

According to some writers and physicians, flagellation is a remedy for torpid condition and lack of muscular energy; it clears the brain, and braces the nerves; in short, there is nothing it will not do, when properly applied… The rod has been found to cure all feigned diseases. In hypochondriacal cases it is an excellent remedy.

To be effectual the rods should be of the right sort. They can be bought at Clifton of Mrs. Clapp, St. John’s-road, from 8d. upwards, trimmed if required. They can be sent post free for 3d. each. They should be made from 2ft. to 3ft. 6in. long, very thin and pliable. I get mine from a family who have made them for generations.

Two extracts from the pamphlet entitled Hint on the Management of Untractable Girls:

Parents who have not the necessary patience or nerve should depute some other person for this office, and, having done so, let them not be restricted in any way, for something must be left to the discretion of the operator.

Anyone who would be deterred by screams or struggles from carrying out what has been begun should never attempt whipping, because, unless it is thoroughly done, ground is lost, and the girl will rejoice in her triumph.

Report in Truth, 21 November 1889:

…My friend then put himself into communication with the woman, saying that he had an intractable ward, aged sixteen. He had three interviews with her at a boarding-house in Porchester-gardens. Subsequently, as he was passing through Bristol, he called on her. He describes her as a tall, strong woman, arrayed in the dress of some sort of Order, and wearing a medallion with the effigy of a ‘Good Shepherd’ stamped upon it. As an inducement to him to confide his ward to her tender mercies, she said that she had girls of twenty in the house, to whom a week or two previously she had administered fifteen cuts with a birch-rod, and she explained that she had a considerable number of clients in London whose daughters she chastised.

This appears probable, for, when my friend called on her, it was difficult to get more than a few minutes’ conversation with her, there were so many waiting for an audience. Each interview costs half-a-guinea. She had before her a book, in which her flogging engagements were registered, and they appeared to be numerous.

The books are by ‘Mrs. Walter’, and the address given in them is 53, Oakfield-road, Clifton, Bristol. The house is called, my friend says, ‘Clifford House’.

Extracts from a letter from Mrs Walter to Mrs Heaton, October 1889:

Thank you for your promise about fees, which I wrote of last night. Three guineas I had for last severe punishment, and will charge you the same. I hope that you may feel that your daughter is benfited by the whipping.

I should like for you to have some luncheon here, and give me a little time to see the girl. Then to punish, and after to go for a little drive, if all goes well, so as to show Millicent that if she behaves she will be rationally treated.

When I punish, I do it thoroughly, but not cruelly. I am sure that judicious whipping will cure the temper, and I hope to have the pleasure of showing you your daughter much improved after a few months’ training.

You will excuse my saying that, if you are quite away I have a better chance of breaking in your daughter than if you are near, and of making her appreciate your goodness. Believe me this is the better plan. Bring her, or let me fetch her, which you please.

I should think that in the present state of affairs it would be better for the girl to come away at once, and for her to learn the value of her home. I could soon make her amenable to your wishes.