SPARE THE ROD and spoil the child was a popular belief in 19th century England, the meaning being that if one did not discipline a child, he or she would never learn obedience and good manners and so corporal punishment such as caning became a common practice at schools in England until outlawed by act of Parliament in 1987.  

Teachers frequently disciplined wayward pupils with a flexible rattan cane applied either to the hands or, especially in the case of teenage boys, to the seat of the trousers. Literature abounds with vivid descriptions of the practice, particularly in the works of the Victorian novelist Charles Dickens, where caning was taken to barbaric lengths in some institutions.

Our own schools in Bourne were no exception and evidence that this extreme form of discipline was still practiced in recent years comes in a Punishment Book covering a sixty year period that has survived, beginning in 1923 with the Bourne Council School in what was then Star Lane (now the Bourne C of E Primary Academy in Abbey Road) with continuing entries as the senior school moved to separate premises in Queen's Road in 1946, later becoming Bourne County Secondary School and then the Robert Manning College (now Bourne Academy).

The Bourne Council School had opened in 1877 with separate sections for the boys and girls and records illustrate the strict discipline imposed. In November 1879, for instance, a local newspaper reported on the monthly meeting of the school board when “a woman named Frisby attended and complained that the mistress of the Girls' School had flogged her child very severely, but after investigating the affair the Board were unanimous in their opinion that the child received no more correction than was absolutely necessary.” 

This regime continued well into the 20th century although Joseph Davies attempted to curb such excesses by his staff when he was appointed headmaster in 1887. After hearing that a teacher had caned 26 boys in one afternoon, many with more than one stroke, he limited punishment to one stroke on the hand and ordered that all cases should be reported to him. The ruling was accepted reluctantly by some teachers but eventually produced results with a reduction in offences. 

Mr Davies retired in 1920 after 33 years and the Punishment Book to record all offences was introduced three years later when it is evident that caning had begun to decline, albeit slowly. During the period from April 1923 until the record closed in April 1984, there are over 600 entries, an average of ten punishments a year, with one, two or three strokes of the cane for offences such as unruly behaviour and being abusive to the staff. The usual procedure when a pupil transgressed was that the teacher sent him to the headmaster and he carried out the caning in his study and each pupil is named in the Punishment Book. 

Offences during 1923 which resulted in caning included continual disobedience or misbehaviour, impudence to a teacher, using bad language, vulgarity, indecent talk, inattention and truancy. Others were caught "smoking on school premises during the dinner hour" and in 1929, one lad was given three strokes for "bullying in the playground after being repeatedly warned and was then cheeky when corrected".  

In the 1930s, two strokes were given for "writing filthy notes" and in 1938, one boy was singled out for special punishment and was eventually sent to the headmaster for "impudence to a teacher followed by misbehaviour in the woodwork room". He was given four strokes on the seat and the headmaster duly noted: "This boy has been looking for trouble for some considerable time." 

The punishments continued through the years, usually for insolence, disobedience and truancy, although today the offences may be regarded as high jinks by teenagers rather than serious wrongdoing although they did break the school rules and it was considered necessary to maintain discipline if the system was to continue working efficiently. 

All of the punishments involved boys and so we tend to forget that this was a co-educational school but we are reminded of this by an entry in October 1968 when a pupil was given one stroke of the cane on the seat for "interfering with a girl causing bruising on her" although we are not told exactly what happened.  

By 1980, the offences remained largely mischievous and adventurous such as smoking and swearing although one pupil was caned (one stroke) for throwing an egg at a teacher while others were given two strokes for "writing an offensive remark" and "removing a door handle".

Punishments were becoming less severe with most pupils receiving only one stroke of the cane each while the majority of the offences were quite trivial. The acceptance of caning therefore appears to have been receding. There was also some concern about pupils being punished for their conduct after they had left the school premises. In 1970, for instance, two boys were caned for assaulting a schoolgirl at Cawthorpe while in the same year, three others were punished for insulting a lady in Queen's Road (one stroke each) and in 1981, a boy was caned for "smoking on a school bus" (two strokes).  

The last entry in the book is dated 28th March 1984 when four fourth-year boys were give three strokes each for "out of school interference with a girl", a punishment agreed with the parents. This is the only entry in the book which refers to the involvement of parents and indicates a change in public opinion over school punishment. Caning also appears to have ended on that day.  

More than twenty years after the abolition of corporal punishment in state schools, there is still a lively discussion over whether it should be reinstated. A survey of more than 6,000 teachers in the United Kingdom in 2008 found that one in five, 22% of them secondary teachers, advocated caning in extreme cases while government research suggested that a number of British people believe that the removal of corporal punishment in schools has been a contributory factor in what was seen to be a general decline in pupil behaviour. The debate therefore continues.