A Very Special School

Moulton-Midmarsh Reform School

Its Foundation, Rise and Demise

An imaginary tale set in the early twentieth century

By

Jason Land

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Chapter 1

My name is Martin Fairweather. I am professor and head of the History Department at the Fenwide University, one of those institutes of higher learning created in that push by the governments in the 1980s and 1990s, when the aim - quite mistaken in my view - was to ensure that every child in UK had a university education. How a university education benefits would-be plumbers, carpenters or, for that matter, any other trade, which we desperately need to make things in this country, escapes me; but mine, as a historian, is not to reason why, but to observe and comment on the follies of our leaders, so as you might imagine, we historians have no end of material on which to comment!

Fenwide, located near the provincial town of Ely, sits in the shadow of its ancient and august neighbour, Cambridge and will probably ever remain there. But, with no false modesty, I can say that the history department, which I was recruited to create, has, under my direction, attained considerable renown in the academic world. I am, myself a product of that other nearby place. I was a working class scholarship boy from the industrial north, but I excelled at history, in which subject I took a first, as a result of which I was offered a research fellowship at St. Jude's College, which I held for some five years. I felt myself highly honoured when, aged but twenty-eight years, I was offered the job as the first professor and head of the history department at Fenwide, which I, of course, accepted and where I have been ever since.

It was my position at Fenwide and the fact that my own special area of interest was in the English school system through the ages, that in late 2008, I was approached by the board of governors of a local public school, Midfen College, and asked if I would be willing to undertake the production of a short book to commemorate the centenary of the founding of the school in 1910, a task I accepted with pleasure. Midfen College was and still is, for that matter, an unusual public school for England. But before I go on, just let me explain, for the benefit of my foreign readers, that an English public school is precisely the opposite of what its name implies; a public school, is in fact, a fee paying school where wealthy parents send their offspring in search of a better education and from which members of the general public are excluded, unless they can afford to cough up the necessary fees. What are in fact public schools, schools to which the general populace are obliged, by law, to send their children, are called State Schools in the UK.

Coming back to Midfen College; this is a relatively young institution, having been created by the endowment of a number of Edwardian philanthropists in 1910. As such, in the eyes of the class obsessed British upper stratum, it is not considered as the equal of the great old schools of the country, such as Eton Winchester, Rugby, or Harrow and many others. But this was precisely the institution about which I had been commissioned to write about to celebrate its 100 year existence.

I started my research, which was not too difficult, as there was a great deal of detailed information available in the school archives, which had been very well kept over the past century. So, my job became one of pulling together enough detail to produce the desired centenary commemoration book. As I went through the material, I was struck by one strange fact; the school had been started in its present buildings, back in 1910, and these buildings had been purchased by the founding fathers from the Department of Education of the day. My curiosity was promptly aroused, for prior to the actual founding of the school there was nothing at all in the archives, other than the fact that the school had been installed in a building, a large building, which predated its foundation. Intrigued, I pressed my researches further into the period prior to 1910 and uncovered an interesting story, which I think you might enjoy.

It is the story of the creation of the most modern of reform or approved school of its day, by a group of late Victorians and how, after a glittering start, its demise was rapid, leading to its closure less than ten years from its foundation, with the result that the building was sold and acquired to house the new Midfen public school, where it is still located, in what are now buildings a century old.

Chapter 2

Up until the end of the late nineteenth century, convicted young offenders aged as low as fifteen years, had been sent to the same prisons as older criminals. There had been a growing feeling that this custom was exposing young tearaways not only to hardened criminals, who could lead them further astray from the straight and narrow, but also left them open to sexual abuse by the older inmates. One has to remember that at that time, and indeed until late in the twentieth century, male homosexuality was a criminal offence in the United Kingdom, leading to imprisonment, as the much publicised trial of Oscar Wild, the playwright, at the end of the nineteenth century, leading to his imprisonment for sodomy testifies. And so, there was a gradual move to develop individual establishments where such errant young men could be confined, and where they could be given the rudiments of an education and perhaps learn a trade, so that on their release they would better fit into the society as upright citizens. In short, there was a general "do-good spirit" about the age.

In this context, under the guidance of the Education Department, several different types of school were set up, so-called approved schools, where young offenders could be confined and rehabilitated. Thus it was, right at the at the end of the nineteenth century, the year before Queen Victoria breathed her last, the Government decided to build and run the most advanced of such schools and plumped for a small town called Moulton-Midmarsh in the fens of East Anglia, as the site for its great experiment.

Moulton-Midmarsh was, and for that matter, still is, a miserable sort of town, stuck in the watery wastes of the fens, which were less well drained then than they are today, for as its name so graphically describes it, was located more or less in the middle of a great watery wasteland. Its attraction to the powers that be, had clearly been the fact that in those days, where movement from place to place was by no means easy, it was, to all intents and purposes, practically isolated from the outside world; surrounded almost completely by the road-less fenlands, it was accessible by only one paved road. Even that great Victorian development, the railway system, which was rendering even the most obscure places accessible, had still not arrived at Moulton- Midmarsh (it never did to this day, by the way) and the nearest station was at Great Moulton, some five miles away. Thus, with the risk of absconding being a real problem from such correctional establishments, the school's remoteness meant that escape from Moulton-Midmarsh was minimal: there was just nowhere to go or to hide.

The worthy burghers of Moulton-Midmarsh were less than delighted to learn that their town had been chosen for this great educational and rehabilitation experiment and there were vigorous protests against the scheme; no one wanted to have a large school of delinquent, semi-criminal youths sitting on their door step. But protests were in vain, for the government had acquired, from a local landowner, a large tract of land just on the edge of the town and had started to build the school, which by the time this story starts was virtually completed. No money was spared on the building and its equipment, which was destined to show the rest of the country the future way. But, to add insult to injury, having been landed with the school with no recourse available, the town Council was informed that the school on its opening would be filled with the worst type young offenders, culled from the normal prisons around the country. In short some 200 recalcitrant, delinquent youths of the worst kind, would be dumped in the school, more or less from day one.

And so, one afternoon in November in the year 1900, we join the steering committee set up by the Town Council to deal with the details of the school and its staffing. It was characteristic of the Department of Education of the day, to leave the final details to someone else to deal with. The local council ran the local schools, for education was already obligatory, and should therefore, be quite capable of dealing with the staffing and other day to day matters of the school; thus ran the logic employed by the Department of Education.

At the meeting at which we join the committee, the pressing question of the moment was the appointment of a headmaster, or Warden, to give him his official title, for the school was scheduled to open at the end of the of the following year and the entire staffing problems had to be settled by then. The committee had, by way of advertisements, already interviewed several potential candidates for the post of Warden, and had more or less decided, subject to this a final interview, which was just about to take place, to appoint a forty-five year old ex Naval Commander, one Reginald Douglas Pratt-Mainwaring to the post.

There had been considerable discussion within the committee as to the type of person most suited to the task but all the members were agreed that a strict disciplinarian would be needed. As they saw things, the school would cater for unruly and recalcitrant youths and corporal punishment seemed be the one sure way of maintaining order. So they wanted to be sure that the person in overall charge not only believed in the maxim, "Spare the Rod and Spoil the Child", but also acted upon it. Well, they could not have opted for a better choice, for Commander Pratt-Mainwaring was the ideal man for the job; he was a ruthless martinet and strict disciplinarian, who enjoyed wielding the cane across the buttocks of wayward boys, or for that matter any boys, wayward or not, for nothing gave him greater pleasure than the sound of a lissom cane landing firmly across a set of naked buttocks: it was as music to his ears!

Commander Pratt-Mainwaring was a bachelor, who had, until recently, been in charge of one of the naval training ships for young recruits from the tender age of eighteen years, where he had a reputation as being a harsh man; the cane was in regular use on the young cadets, who found themselves put across a beating horse for even the most minor of offences. Many of the officers under the Commander thought privately that he was too harsh and too ready to inflict corporal punishment on his charges, but his word was law on board the ship and the cane was in regular and vigorous use.

But there was another side of the Commander's character, about which nothing was ever said aloud but which simmered there just below the surface: the Commander was, in fact, a covert homosexual. Victorian England never mentioned the word and polite society to all intents and purposes, pretended that it did not exist, but male homosexuality, which was a criminal offence and if discovered could, and often did, lead to a prison sentence for the "offenders", was as common then as it is today. It is, however a fact that the powers that be can legislate all they wish, but the sex urge, either male-female or male-male or even female-female coupling , is so strong that all the tea in China will not stop people succumbing to that most natural of all urges: to fuck.

It was a generally acknowledge, but unspoken fact that all exclusively male institutions were hot- beds of homosexuality, a practice which was, and probably still is, quite common in English public schools; and the cadet training ship run by the Commander was no exception. Some one hundred young men, all with hormones surging through their bodies and with no female company to hand, had no other recourse to relieve their sexual tensions than to resort to what the Victorians variously referred to as lewd or unnatural behaviour. So anal intercourse or buggery was a common occurrence among the young recruits, who, if caught in the the act, were soundly caned and admonished "not to do it again".

Of course this was all as water off a duck's back for, as pointed out above, sex is beyond legislation; so, the staff on the training ship, simply whacked the young offenders' arses as hard as they could and let matters rest at that. It never crossed their minds to bring such practices to the attention of higher authorities, Thus it was, that homosexuality, the forbidden act, was tolerated, by the very act of ignoring its existence; it went on, but did not exist officially. In fact in any all male environment made up of men aged eighteen to twenty, with no access to female company it is not surprising that male sex was rife, being the only outlet for the natural sexual desire of virile young men,.

The Commander himself was no different from any other man; he wanted to fuck; he wanted to fuck arse, as hard and as often as possible as he was totally incapable of controlling his own innate libido. So once or twice a week, he would seize upon some muscular young cadet for a piffling minor offence, which was not a difficult job, for the Commander had the aptitude of finding fault and if no fault existed, of inventing one. He summoned the "offender" to his quarters, made him drop his pants, bend across a chair and proceeded to thrash his arse with one of the many canes he always kept to hand. Then, with the young unfortunate still across the chair, he would say to him that he thought he now needed a little "relaxation" after his ordeal; an ordeal it always was, for the Commander applied his cane with vigour. Telling the young man to spread his legs, he would then apply a little lubricant to his own cock and give the young lad's anus a thorough fucking.

Truth to tell, many of the recipients of the Commander's "largesse" actually enjoyed having their arses reamed. The Commander then warned his "partner in crime" as it were, that it would be unwise to mention to anyone what had just taken place; even as a cadet, aged eighteen he was now considered of age and could be sent to prison for having taken part in an illicit sex act. The Commander himself realized that he was sailing dangerously close to the wind, but like many before and after him, his sex urge was so strong that there were occasions, many occasions to be frank, that with the best will in the world, he was unable to control it. In fact, it is no different today; sex is just a great driving force.

But, on this one occasion, a young offender, John Makin by name, retiring from just such an ordeal, was jostled by his mates, who insisted on examining his arse to see just what it looked like after a dozen hard cuts of the cane. The worldly wise 'Alpha Male' of the group, a brash young man called Timothy White, then asked John what had happened after the caning.

"What do you mean, what happened?" said John.

"Oh come on," said Timothy, "Don't act so dumb. What else did he do to you? Did he offer you an arse fuck as a consolation? Did he, in fact, fuck your hole?"

His fellow cadets were all ears to hear the full story, which, of course, now came out.

"Well," said Timothy, "Welcome to the club."

"What club are you talking about?" asked John.

"What the fuck do you think, you blockhead? The "Buggered Lads' Club". Listen, John, you don't think that yours is the only hole into which the Commander has stuck his cock, do you? It's a regular occurrence; whenever he decides to beat one of us privately, it always ends up with him fucking the guy he has just thrashed; that, old son, is the way life is here. Look at the six of us, we've all had the same treatment as you; some of us several times. And, don't get me wrong, some of us, me included, quite enjoy having our holes reamed. Come on John you know that many of us do it among ourselves; what the fuck; it's the only way we can relieve our sexual urges; it's all part of life our present life."

"So, what should we do about it?" asked John.

"Nothing, my friend, nothing at all! Just let sleeping dogs lie." concluded Timothy.

But, one day, the Commander truly overstepped his remit, when he had a young recruit flogged with a whip, an implement strictly forbidden by the navy rules. He had already buggered the lad in his quarters in several of his private beating sessions, so why he should suddenly have gone over the top and really broken the rules, was difficult to understand. But that was the end of Pratt-Mainwaring's naval career; his colleagues, who were fully conversant with the sexual mores of the training ship, thought that he had, this time, gone just one step too far. His behaviour was brought to the attention of the higher powers at the admiralty and shortly afterwards he was gently eased out of his post and told to look for another job, which was how he came to be at the interview today.

It is worth noting that with the typical hypocrisy of the times, (one could say, of all times, for it is no different today), the Commander suffered no sanctions and no criminal charges were ever brought against him. And so, it was with an ostensibly clean slate, that he found himself at the final interview for the job of Warden of the new reform school in Moulton-Midmarsh. After his dismissal from the navy, the chairman of the admiralty committee which had fired the Commander gave voice to his thoughts saying he wondered what type of post he would find and what his new employer would make of him. "Caveat emptor," said one of his colleagues, adding, by way of an explanation, "Let the buyer beware; it's up to them to make sure that they know what they are getting." And with that, the navy washed its hands of Commander Pratt-Mainwaring, Please note, however, that he was not stripped of his rank of Commander and was still able to style himself as such, which, of course, he did.

But now, to come back to the steering committee in Moulton-Midmarsh, the chairman began:

"Commander we appreciate that you have had a great deal of experience in charge of a naval training vessel, but the post we are trying to fill today is somewhat different to that which you have just relinquished. Let me explain; the naval cadets you had in your charge, were basically willing recruits, wanting to join the navy and although it is clear that like all young men they needed discipline, they were not basically against the world as it were; not against society in general and habitual creators of disorder. Now the type of youths you will have to deal with in this new approved school is exactly that: young miscreants, who have, in one way or another, rebelled against social conventions and are often intent on creating mayhem. How do you think you will be able to deal with that?"

"Mr. Chairman, you need have no worries about my ability to maintain order in any, and I repeat any, situation. I am known as a strict disciplinarian and have no qualms in dealing with a group of miscreant youths. Believe me, sir, when I say that if I am appointed the post, the school will be run like clockwork; rules will be strictly enforced and the slightest deviation from the straight and narrow will immediately give rise to severe punishment. I am, sir, a great believer in the therapeutic virtues of corporal punishment; I practised it in my previous post and would propose, if I have the honour to be appointed, to continue it here. Let me say, sir, that even the most recalcitrant and defiant of youths, quickly realizes with me, that he must tread the straight and narrow; once he has been treated to a good dose of the cane across is bare buttocks, the effect can but be described as magical!"