Punishment in Prison: Flogging
“I hope you will only give me the seven years, my Lord, and don’t flog me.”
Across the nineteenth century there was a marked shift away from a public system of punishment to a private one, a move which arguably reached its zenith in the 1868 Capital Punishment Amendment Act that removed execution to behind the public walls. However, whilst public punishments disappeared from sight, some of the more brutalising and barbarous punishments in the legal arsenal made an unexpected return and remained far longer than we might imagine in England’s prisons. One notable example was the cruel and violent punishment of flogging.
Writing in 1869 the Newcastle Daily Chronicle reported on the flogging of three prisoners at Newcastle Gaol. The paper reported that Mr. Justice Brett had sentenced the men (William Fatkin, Thomas Charlton and Ralph Charlton) to penal servitude with the additional “degradation” of flogging. The report pointed out that flogging had long been absent, particularly in Newcastle (indeed flogging for women had been abolished in England in 1817) and that this sentence would be the first enacted within the walls of the gaol.
“Hitherto, the authorities in Newcastle have been spared the odium of the disgusting task which the Act imposes; but they can no longer boast of this immunity.”
Although not specifically named, the ‘Act’ that the newspaper referred to may well have been the “Garroters Act” of 1863 – a piece of legislation deemed by many to be the result of what historians and sociologists often refer to as a ‘moral panic’.
Moral Panic
The term moral panic was introduced by sociologist Stanley Cohen in the 1970s. Cohen wrote “Societies appear to be subject, every now and then, to periods of moral panic. A condition, episode, person or group of persons emerges to become defined as a threat to societal values and interests; its nature is presented in a stylized and stereotypical fashion by the mass media; the moral barricades are manned by editors, bishops, politicians and other right-thinking people; socially accredited experts pronounce their diagnoses and solutions; ways of coping are evolved or (more often) resorted to; the condition then disappears, submerges or deteriorates and becomes more visible.” - Stanley Cohen (Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods and Rockers (London, 1972), 9).
In the case of the ‘Garroters Act’ the panic in question was around a perceived rise in violent street robberies involving people being grabbed from behind and throttled or ‘garroted’. In the previous decades a number of Acts had brought an end to the longstanding punishment of transportation (the removal of prisoners to another country – most often a colony) and there was a concerted move towards longer and tougher prison sentences to replace it. However, in July 1862 Hugh Pilkington M.P was subject to a violent street robbery in which he was grabbed from behind and throttled. The newspapers reported on this case and a number of similar ones up and down the country appeared in newspaper reports soon after and a large amount of pressure built on the authorities to deal with this perceived wave of new violence. In a reaction to both press and public pressure the Garroters Act of 1863 effectively reintroduced the punishment of flogging for cases of robbery with violence.
The Newcastle Daily Chronicle alluded to the panic in London in a piece reporting on the recent sentencing of the Newcastle three. On the reintroduction of flogging they believed that,
“The object in granting this discretion was to check crimes of violence. Offences against the person had become notorious in London, and to allay panic in the metropolis, this retaliatory measure was introduced.”
The paper made no bones when it came to its opinion on the punishment’s revival.
“To meet violence with violence is the oldest of old-world ways of dealing with crime, but the experience of mankind has proved it quite as impotent as it is antique.”
The reports of the triple flogging at Newcastle gaol show just how brutal and cruel the punishment was. Flogging was administered using the “cat” (cat-o-nine-tails - pictured above) which was a handle with a series of long ropes/cords attached to lash the back of the prisoner. These would often leave deep lacerations in the skin for years. It was an implement designed to mark the prisoner and do lasting damage to their body, with people often scarred for life from a particularly vicious flogging.
Understandably it was a greatly feared punishment, often more so than the prison sentence attached it invariably came with. This was the case for William Smith in 1872 who, on hearing that he had been sentenced to seven years penal servitude and 18 lashes, turned pale and implored of the presiding judge, Baron Piggot, “I hope you will only give me the seven years, my Lord, and don’t flog me.” Sadly, Smith had to undergo flogging and the papers reported that during the punishment “he continued to shout for mercy, and yelled fearfully while remaining lashes were given. When taken down his back was one mass of bruised livid flesh.”
Perhaps surprisingly, given the severity and brutality of the punishment the newspaper in both the 1869 and 1872 cases, recorded that a number of people were in attendance at the prison to see the punishment enacted. Reporting on the triple flogging in 1869 one newspaper noted that
“The only persons bound by law to be witnesses to the tragedy enacted yesterday, in the workroom of the gaol, were the governor of the prison and the surgeon; but the mayor and several magistrates graced the scene. Some persons, who were not magistrates, were also present, while no less than three medical gentlemen gave their professional services. Thirty councillors, however, who were anxious to witness the edifying spectacle, were cruelly denied the gratification.”
It may seem remarkable to the modern reader but this punishment remained part of the penal arsenal until the 1940s. The issue raised its ugly head again in 1934 when a convict at Dartmoor Prison, Ernest Collins, took his own life. Collins left a series of harrowing notes detailing the mental anguish the thought of being flogged was causing him and the case caused deep consternation at the highest levels of government. Some have argued that his case ‘became a crucial component of rejuvenated campaigns for an enquiry into the use of corporal punishment’ and ultimately helped eventually lead to its abolition. Speaking on the case of Ernest Collins the Robert Bernays M.P. believed that,
“There is no doubt that this is a very brutal punishment. It is not just a schoolboy's birching. A man is tied to a triangle, thrashed with a whip of nine thongs, and his back left a mass of weals and blood. It is a revolting punishment, and it is not pleasant to think of its effect not merely on the victim but on the man who has to carry out the punishment, on the officials who have to witness it and on the society in whose name it is done.”
