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Tales of Finmore's Sticks: Six Eton 4th Formers Go Down!
A fictionalized tale from Eton College anecdote and lore, this one circa mid-19th Century …
In nearly all of his ten years of service as Eton College Headmaster, Dr. Charles Old Goodford should have seldom conceived, much less often encountered such an outrageous contempt for authority as on this pale and sad day. Did these six young supposedly bright and scholarly 4th form miscreant Oppidans who now stood before him have any idea how utterly stupid they all now seemed in the contrast? What could they all have been thinking?
Dr. Goodford, though tempted to pace at a rapid rate within the confines of the room, instead made sure to stride very slowly back and forth in his black billowing robes so as not to betray his true feelings on the matter. That would not do, not at all and besides, there would be hell to pay for each of them and he would be on the giving end of that hell in short order.
The overall effect on the room's observers of Dr. Goodford's central role was telling on many levels. There to the side of the spectacle stood the original and main victim of the audacious and very publically performed crime, a stately and proud man now nearly in his sixties, one Henry Finmore.
Born in Bray, Berkshire on the 19th July 1800, Henry Finmore married Mary Sidwell at Stanwell, Middlesex on 6 August, 1833 and from there Henry became salaried by Dr. Goodford's predecessor, Dr. Edward Craven Hawtrey, Eton College Headmaster from 1834 to 1853. Henry's formal duty was servant and door-keeper to the Headmaster's chambers.
Of H. Finmore's service to old Hawtrey it has been said:
"It was comical to see Hawtrey patrolling Long Chamber of an evening, preceded by Finmore, his servant, carrying a lantern in his hand. Master and servant walked, apparently in blissful unconsciousness, through the half-prepared scenery of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' and 'High Life Below Stairs.'—"Eton in the Forties," 1898, Arthur Duke Coleridge.
But for only that service, old Finmore's presence at Eton would never likely have graced any page of history much less that of the College. No, it was Finmore's other much more famous avocation that would place Henry Finmore squarely into the long annals Eton College history forever.
You see, Henry with wife Mary's assistance became quite famous (infamous?) as well as sufficiently salaried for the express purpose as Hawtrey's (and now Goodford's) rod-maker, that is maker of the ominous Eton birching rod bundles used by the Lower Master and the Head to punish both Lower School and Upper School Eton College pupils. Just how and why Finmore's name rose to a level of recognition not afforded the rod-maker of a much more celebrated flogger of Eton pupils, Dr. John Keate, is not presently known, but I digress.
As he now ceased pacing, Goodford took a brief moment to cast a warning scowl at another observer, the Sixth Form praeposter who had successfully rounded up the six culprits and now stood near to Finmore. In contrast to Finmore's dignified and aloof demeanor, the boy was instead sporting a rather churlish grin of delight in anticipation of the Head's pronouncement of sure floggings for the six culprits.
Indeed, though Guy Fitzmorris quickly changed his grin to a more appropriate solemn face, were one to more closely examine Fitzmorris' trouser front behind his jacket, his true anticipation could be best characterized as more or less base lust. Nothing like observing one good swishing after all, not even to mention six at once as well as the anticipated arrival of his close mate, Hugh Dinsmore!
It was then that Goodford finally faced the downcast six,
"Look at me square all of you!" Goodford bellowed.
In unison the pale faces of the guilty Oppidans rose up, mouths all slightly agape, limbs all twitching with telltale nerves.
"Whose idea was this in the first place?!" Goodford demanded, though he doubted that an answer would emerge. Eton lads seldom gave into any form of scapegoatism that was this public and involving of the Head.
Dawes looked at Murray who passed the gaze to Parker, then Bathurst, Burnham and finally Studd. None of them said a peep save the first, Nigel Dawes, a rather lanky fourteen year old who managed a wan fixation of the Head's fearsome expression,
"Can't really say Headmaster."
Knowing better than to press the point, much less not really caring a lot about further detail instead looked at faithful servant Henry Finmore,
"You say all of the rods were retrieved intact Henry?"
Up to this point, Henry Finmore could have been asked to take his leave long before and would have been just as happy. Unlike Fitzmorris and his countless young voyeuristic counterparts, Finmore's interest in the assured final outcome was now purely academic. He was merely a witness now,
"Yes Dr. Goodford, intact and ready for use," and then cast a long look at the evidences now standing stoutly up against the far Library wall, three on each side of the Upper School flogging block which despite its diminutive size, may have well been ten times its actual size for the fear that it put into the hearts and minds of the condemned.
Very purposely, Dr. Goodford then slowly strode over and picked up one of the carefully constructed bundles for inspection. He smiled. Henry Finmore may have not been the only rod-maker in Eton's history, but he might be the best and most accurate to reproduce each bundle the same as the one made before it.
At a traditional six inches just short of five foot in total length, "Finmore's sticks" as some had nick-named them even exceeded the forty-eight inch length of judicial birch used at Dartmoor Prison in Devon, though the sixteen ounce Dartmoor bundle exceeded the usual weight of a typical Eton bundle by a good four ounces. With only three foot of handle, the business end of the Eton beauty was nearly a full two foot of splayed "bush" guaranteed to bring a great deal of pain to bear upon the recipient.
Goodford carefully set the bundle back upright on the floor astride two of its brothers, the bush most upward and then turned and faced the guilty parties once again quickly displaying a small smile. Yes, the boys would never tell him who started the fiasco but it was very clear that there was not complete unity on the matter either.
He addressed the three boys to his left who stood a bit gaped apart from the other three to his right,
"Dawes, Murray and Parker. Unlike your equally guilty peers, your particular foolishness cannot be well explained! What made you three think that by assaulting Mr. Finmore's grocery cart before it arrived at Weston Yard should have ever spared you the same fate as Kirk, Baring and Hailsham?"
Indeed. What could any of them say and not be labeled as feeble failures? Kirk, Baring and Hailsham had been the first three of the six boys to suffer floggings in that very room after three o'clock school earlier that day. That Dawes, Murray and Parker had been temporarily spared only bespoke a rare error of supply.
There had been only three rod bundles to flog six boys, not nearly enough. Seldom did any Eton Headmaster use the same bundle on two boys. It was not good etiquette even before the theoretical advent of more pragmatic hygienic concerns, that and a single bundle's bushy business end sometimes did not last more than the required six swishing cuts, though some could last eight or even ten should an extension be required.
Kirk, Baring and Hailsham suffered for the use of the three available bundles. Dawes, Murray and Parker were sent away to return to receive their floggings until the six o'clock hour while Goodford dispatched the Sixth Form praeposter on duty to go with good haste to inform Henry Finmore that more birching rods would be needed that early evening to finish the job.
Over the next several hours, Finmore complied with as much careful haste as possible. Then, towards the end of his work and through his apartment window, he spied a man pushing a grocery cart seeming to pass by on its way up Keate's Lane towards the High Street. Henry rushed from the door and recruited the man to assist him in transporting the birching bundles all the way to their destination at Weston's Yard just north of the School Office.
Goodford received no response from the three other than embarrassed and down-turned lips so he looked at the other three fourth formers, Bathurst, Burnham and Studd,
"And as for you three, I should have a good mind to bring you back within the week to suffer additionally for having foolishly agreed to your peers' ridiculous demands!"
Each boy shuddered at just the thought of two floggings within one week! Could that even be endured? Talk about scapegoats. Perhaps recruiting the already condemned in the bodies of Dawes, Murray and Parker made a little sense, but to have been recruited for what must be a failed mission did not make for a lot of logic after all.
There had been well over fifty assembled boys who upon hearing of that day's deficit of flogging rods in the Upper School, had somehow thought it clever and fun to not only prevent Finmore's entrance into Weston Yard to deliver the rod bundles, but to purloin the devices, as if that would have ever spared Dawes, Murray and Parker.
Only after his employer's lecture of the last three boys had Henry Finmore's face allowed for a public display of open satisfaction that the culprits had been identified and apprehended. As it was, both he and all of the fifty in attendance about the yard's entrance who had cheered and looked on would never forget Henry's plea to the crowd of boys that late afternoon as he helplessly watched his precious instruments plucked from the grocer's cart and carried away,
"Oh, gentlemen, what a silly job this is! What's the use of getting me into trouble? The Doctor 'ill wallop you all the same, and you'll only get it all the hotter if you keep him waiting till to-morrow morning." "Floreat Etona," Ralph Neville, 1911, MacMillan and Co., Limited
Well, there would be no tomorrow morning. Dr. Goodford hated delaying justice when it was already several hours in waiting. Having dispatched a veritable army of Upper School collegers, the stolen bundles were retrieved within barely another hour, the culprits indentified, put in the bill and brought in by the praeposter as well.
Once again, Goodford was greeted by the expected silent response to his rhetorical statement and proceeded,
"Very well. Henry, you are dismissed to go or stay as you wish."
Henry turned to leave; he had better chores to do including more rod bundles to assemble with Mary before the next day.
"Wait!" Goodford blurted and Finmore stopped and turned, "Sir?"
"What is the value, the price of a bundle Henry?"
For a number of years now, decades actually, Finmore had been paid a single salary for his skills in rod-making, the total of which always seemed sufficient to him. Nonetheless, he had taken to selling special birching rod bundles whose handles were accented with a ribbon of the college's traditional light blue colour each year on Leaver's Day to those pupils who had finished their years at Eton and were moving on to university or other of life's next challenges.
Such an item was considered by the newly anointed OE to be an amusing memento or souvenir at the least, but to a few others, a rather useful gift for private activities not obvious to many. In any case, Finmore announced the price for the Leaver's gift to Goodford's inquiry,
"A guinea, Headmaster."
Goodford smiled at the boys, "Excellent, thank you Henry. All six of you shall bear an additional penalty fine of one guinea each due within a week after your floggings today or suffer another trip here to the Library, any who should fail. Am I understood?"
The boys answered in uniform affirmation, most of them with an internal grimace. One guinea was a lot of money for even an Eton boy in those days, but well worth sparing an already beaten bum even more excruciating pain on the repeat. Henry Finmore, now more pleased by the fines than the threat of more floggings, turned and left the Library.
"Fitzmorris, call in the holders as well as any who shall witness, it is time to proceed!" The Headmaster announced.
* * * * * * * * * *
To say that the room was crowded with wide-eyed onlookers, especially with older boys from the Upper School, would hardly be a surprise. From the merely curious to the abjectly leering stares of boys who would later sate their boosted appetites with tolerated self-pleasures or through forbidden encounters with mostly willing partners, it seemed each available bench or chair to sit and floor space to stand in the Headmaster's Library was soon taken.
The old stair-step flogging block pulled out from the wall and put into position, the two appointed colleger "holders-down" stood ready as Dr. Goodford brandished the first fresh bundle of flogging rods and commanded,
"Dawes! Go down!"
Nigel Dawes, an Eton Oppidan of but fourteen years of age just the prior month had suffered but one painful caning from his House Captain just two weeks prior. Six of the best over his trousers had been painful enough to cause tears and he already knew that the marks had faded. But that was nothing of the drama, much less the long lasting marks to follow on this occasion.
"Trousers and pants down boy!" the older colleger commanded as he now stood before the block.
Dawes had no choice of course. Though he had bared all before boys in the sports changing rooms and certainly in the baths, even his dose of the cane from his House Captain had been only in the presence of the other three house prefects and not the entire house of boys, much less this gathered overly interested throng behind him.
Nothing could suppress the rush of hushed whispers as Dawes loosened and then bending forward, dropped down his clothing to his ankles and exposed his pert pale bared buttocks to all. To a few, the sight of them caused nothing more than a forced empathy born out of one's own prior experience in similar circumstances in that same room; but to many more, Dawes' bared nates caused a rush of blood to force careless arousal and not so secretive grins of automatic pleasure.
"Hands forward!" the one colleger announced.
Dawes complied. Painful insult to injury was not his goal. The colleger slid on the protective thick leather gauntlets familiar to all past both of his thin wrists, the purpose of which was to guard against unintended manual injury should a hand flail involuntarily back to protect against anticipated pain only to encounter injurious collision with the descending bush.
"Kneel!" came the next command and Dawes, his knees shaking, obeyed.
He bent forward, trying in vain to prevent his genitals from appearing between his thighs to the onlookers, but found that in order to prevent his private orifice from making a very public showing, he had to compromise with more widely spread thighs as he lay his belly on the topmost block step. The choice made Dawes' rather average sized penis and testicles dangle down most delicately in full view of the onlookers causing those who were prone even more arousal and leering stares.
The two holders-down descended, raised the boy's shirts upward and towards his head, pressed their heavy palms down on his shoulders and then looked up at Dr. Goodford who announced,
"You are to receive eight strokes Dawes, six as prior earned and two extra for having unwisely participated in today's scandalous attack and thievery of Mr. Finmore's birching rods!"
Dawes gasped as did the room in back of him. Eight was a lot, even for an Upper School boy and there were just a few who did feel that eight was a bit much. Goodford proceeded. He took his length of the rods upon their target, drew back, but not too far up above his shoulder as was not proper for flogging boys.
The Headmaster intended eight strokes of sufficiently horizontal power and rapid build-up into the fiery presence of Hades upon the boy's backside to make it more than effective. Some boys even in close proximity chose to shut their eyes and just listened.
Soon enough, even by the second mighty swish, a great howl arose from Nigel Dawes' throat. Such pain had no reference other than wanting it to stop. By even the third cut, somehow the colleger to Dawes' left stopped his left arm and hand from flying backwards though the gauntlet would have prevented harm, but nothing stopped the progression of excruciating sting and burn.
It was a lewd thing to many now, the rush of the birching rod's giant bush through the room's warm, dank air followed closely by the distinctive sound effect as if water was splashing upon a hard object. In this case, it was not water, it was the contact of the splay of collected thin reeds with Dawes' soft buttocks, closely followed by a wide spread of the many rising thin welts and soon more, dots of blood.
Shameless sexual thoughts appeared in a few of the minds of older boys as the sight of trickles of blood down from Dawes' wounds finally appeared after four strokes. These boys had long since grown hardened to the effects of the birch even upon themselves, much less upon a much younger more vulnerable boy whose howls for mercy filled the air only to either be ignored or used for even more arousal to some.
In any case, Dawes' right hand gauntlet was put to good use having escaped the colleger's block but came to no harm save that Dr. Goodford grunted and contemplated, but then discarded the thought of adding an additional ninth cut to the now completed eight. Besides, the rod's bush was rapidly deteriorating; bits of it would have to be removed from the newly shallow and sore grooves in Dawes' freshly flayed backside by his house dame as it was, not an unusual outcome.
"You may rise!" the Headmaster announced, startling some who had become quite obsessed with the room's excited silence.
The collegers helped Dawes to his feet and when they did, his red welts and small cuts hurt all the more, tears falling from Nigel's face. The criss-crossed red thin welts coalesced into deeper scarlet and even purplish hues before the eyes of those few who leered especially hardest causing a few small and unnoticed private sighs of pleasure, but all of their vocal murmurings together increased into a distracting small din.
As expected, FItzmorris' lover, Hugh Dinsmore, did arrive and standing together hip to hip, both would observe all six floggings from in back of a complete row of other boys. Surely this prolonged display of unmitigated sadism was tailor made to cause one or both of them to spontaneously erupt inside of their pants and trousers. To that end, first Fitzmorris and then Dinsmore did periodically and stealthily reach across and quickly fondle his fist over the other's swollen crutch to affect the response.
Dawes' punishment concluded, Dr. Goodford obtained a new birch bundle and announced,
"Murray, go down!"
After awhile, even the sights of a freshly beaten young backside much less the sounds of the boy's yelled or screamed pleas for mercy draws into crudely casual and even unhearing older ears. By the time the fourth boy, Arthur Bathurst, was told to "go down" and repeated the same vocal behaviors during his flogging as the prior boys, some of the older observers crassly thought and even whispered to each other,
"What is our school coming to? Is there no mettle in the fourth?"
But this is no surprise if not a banal attitude among inured Eton boys over the decades:
"How do you feel?" said Jackson, as I made my appearance at the bottom of the stairs.
"Very warm and comfortable," I answered, laughing, "It did sting a little, though."
"Yes; you'll be like a plum-pudding behind, I dare say, for the next fortnight. However, as it's not the time of year for bathing, nobody will be able to chaff you about it." "Recollections of Eton," 1870, author unknown.
* * * * * * * * * *
Fitzmorris and Dinsmore made a game of it right to the end of young Studd's sixth and final flogging. The loser would be the first one forced to wet himself even if both succumbed, the winner, much later on in Fitzmorris' room, to lay his naked body upon the loser's prone naked body in Fitzmorris' bed and bugger away as long as he wished!
On that early evening after dismissal of the crowd of onlookers who quickly pounded down the stairs from Upper School and into School Yard below to attend to the evening's hot meal and other activities, the six young punished lads limped among their peers much more slowly down those same stairs and back towards their houses to seek nursing of their wounded bums and spirits from their house dames as well as to partake of food later on. None of them would fail to deliver one guinea each to the college bursar to avoid yet another flogging the following week.
Dr. Goodford would be seen to totter back to his study to attend to other late matters with nary a thought of the proceedings just concluded before retiring a short distance down on the High Street to his private apartment. Henry Finmore could be found much earlier finally laughing with wife Mary within their apartment about half-way down Keate's Lane that the throng of thieving boys had been harmless after all, but that he hoped it not to happen again, which it did.
Fitzmorris won by the way, though Dinsmore could hardly be said to be displeased. He would gladly submit to a robust effort seemingly intent on reaching his throat from behind and make sure to win the struggle the next time, which there would be a next time.
© Copyright PJ Franklin February 11, 2010
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Last updated: February 11, 2010