Cricket Witness No 6 - His Captain's Hand on His Shoulder Smote

21 The Origin; Tom Brown’s Schooldays a high rank in life’, diagnosed this as dullness and idleness. In 1860, and with his father’s consent, he subjected the unfortunate youth to what became a fatal beating and Mr Hopley served four years penal servitude for manslaughter. The pupils were flogged unmercifully but, perhaps worse, was the cruel and chaotic nature of schools which, were ‘essentially self-governing republics, run by a prefectorial elite, in which the teachers rarely intervened.’ As such, these ‘nurseries of vice’ were replete with inveterate Flashmanesque bullying and torture within and the drunken terrorising of the immediate hinterland without. The saga of uprisings includes Eton which had an infamous riot in 1788 and there were five such insurrections at Westminster between 1770 and 1818. Property was destroyed, barricades erected with stones and pistols deployed. Soldiers with fixed bayonets were required to quell one of the Westminster rebellions, while the Harrow riot of 1771 lasted three weeks. Charterhouse, Shrewsbury and Merchant Taylors’ also witnessed rebellions. There had been riots at Rugby; even Thomas Arnold only narrowly thwarted a rising as late as 1833. This ceaseless disorder was just one aspect of the general disorder, criminality and unrest that characterised the Hanoverian period until well into the 19 th century. In a very brief, but significant aside, it must be urged that the abrupt, switch to a more orderly and calmer social environment was the key to and foundation for the reform of the public schools. Societies get the schools they deserve, although, inevitably, there is interaction, with, in this critical case, the school turning out the leaders and supporters of this revivified and, much more, stable national community. Thomas Arnold was the standard-bearer in what one might literally call a battle. He flogged and expelled, although he was the more likely to do so for lying or bullying than deficient school-work. Dr Arnold’s control of, and trust in, the prefecture was a further part of his methodology. Essentially he, and his disciples, were akin to warders who had claimed back the jail from the prisoners.