Spanking Machine: Royal Patent Self-Acting Ferule

In Southey’s Common-Place Book: Original Memoranda, Etc. (London 1876) we find this all-too-brief mention of a spanking machine:

patented spanking machine

“Pocock, the schoolmaster, by S. Michael’s churchyard, has a machine to punish the boys, which they call the royal patent self-acting ferule.”

Sadly, no image of this machine seems to have survived. One wonders: would a careful and tedious search of ancient British patent records turn up an engineering drawing?

See Also:

Leave A Comment

Maximum Comment Length: 2500 characters (about five paragraphs)



How It Started And How It's Going, The Movie:

Wild Party 2: Five Very Sorry Girls

before and after brutal caning photo
"...thirty vicious cane strokes for each delinquent young woman caught drinking on school grounds..."