A document in the Harleian Collection of Manuscripts (British Museum) tells something of seaboard life at that period: There were ships' boys in the 16th century and they certainly received corporal punishment.
It is not clear just how far back this tradition goes. Nevertheless, boys of all backgrounds were liable to bare-bottom discipline as soon as they joined the Navy. would stoically endure traditional punishments of the sort that their parents might inflict but refused to submit to the more degrading disciplinary measures favoured by some middle-class schoolteachers. although these ritual humiliations were for many years an integral part of public school life, teachers from such a background often discovered that working-class parents and children were resolute in their resistance to this type of punishment. the most determined resistance to particular punishments that teachers attempted to impose occurred when boys refused to remove their trousers to be beaten on their bare bottoms. private) schools, but tended to be resisted by the less well-educated, not just the boys themselves but sometimes also their parents: He points out that bare-posterior punishment was familiar to and accepted by middle- or upper-class boys who attended so-called "public" (i.e. Stephen Humphries in his book on working-class childhood in a later period, "Hooligans or Rebels?", raises some interesting aspects. A crude wallop from an irate mother or belting from a father was the limit of it. Working-class boys had little or no schooling at that time and hence little experience of formal (still less bare) posterior chastisement.
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Food, recreation time and conversation were sacrosanct to them, and reduced diets, extra drill, denial of free time and solitary confinement in the ships' cells were resented by boys, and awkward to supervise, even if effective. Boys daily scurried about the decks barefoot, climbed the rigging in all climatic conditions and were deliberately toughened up to cope with a life at sea. In defence of the majority of flogging captains of Navy ships, the existing spartan conditions made it difficult to create effective sanctions for misbehaviour. It was a harsh life, even by the standards of the day, and the romance was quickly eclipsed by rotten food, the terrors of combat and strict discipline. Some boys were already sufficiently educated to become midshipmen (boy officers) after a few months of training. Sometimes older boys of good physique were press-ganged but the majority were volunteers, attracted by the romance of the sea and (from 1794 onwards) the relatively good pay. During battles they were made to carry water and gunpowder, earning them the nickname "powder monkeys".Ĭlass divisions were not so rigid as in later Victorian times, and boys from humble backgrounds went aboard with the sons of gentlemen and of existing officers and seamen. They acted as cabin boys to officers and senior seamen, but they were also apprentice seamen, 'learning the ropes' (literally) as they underwent sail training on the rigging. In the eighteenth century the Royal Navy encouraged boys as young as nine to enlist as 'servants' (the lower age limit was raised to 13 in 1794). See also the same scene from other angles. "Kissing the Gunner's Daughter" was naval slang for corporal punishment administered to a young seaman over a gun as imagined in this artist's impression. Farrell, partly based on research by "Diogenes" 'KISSING THE GUNNER'S DAUGHTER' United Kingdom - Naval Discipline for Boys Part I: 1780-1860 By "Newjack" With additional material by C. CORPORAL PUNISHMENT FOR BOYS IN THE UK ROYAL NAVY: 1