Penge Penal Insti­tute, 18 Novem­ber, 11–30 am

An exem­plary can­ing for a Crys­tal Palace cou­ple found guilty of show­ing per­sis­tent dis­re­spect to their neigh­bours. Mr and Mrs Col­in Lee, of 19 The Rise, had ignored repeat­ed requests to turn off their gramo­phone play­er after eleven o’clock in the evening and, in the judge­ment of the mag­is­trates, need­ed to receive a short, sharp shock to encour­age them to mend their ways. ‘You have behaved like ill-man­nered school­child­ren,’ the pre­sid­ing mag­is­trate told the cou­ple, ‘and it is as school­child­ren that you will be treat­ed.’ The cou­ple, in their late thir­ties, were told to put on school uni­forms and sub­mit them­selves, in turn, to a severe can­ing from SCO Rod­well. Both received 15 strokes of the cane, the court hav­ing judged them equal­ly guilty of the offences with which they were charged.

The can­ings were admin­is­tered over under­wear. Mrs Lee bore her can­ing with for­ti­tude, but Mr Lee shift­ed posi­tion and twice swore audi­bly. The SCO, act­ing with­in her dis­cre­tionary rights, award­ed him three addi­tion­al strokes for each exple­tive used.

Signed: SCO RODWELL

Penge Penal Insti­tute, 5 Novem­ber, 4 pm 

36-stroke strap­ping admin­is­tered to Mr Roger Bevan of 11 Burbage Road, East Dul­wich. Mr Bevan, 43, a repeat drunk-and-dis­or­der­ly offend­er, had been spared prison by the mag­is­trates’ court on con­di­tion that he sub­mit to a severe thrash­ing and apol­o­gise to the land­lord of the Red Lion, Mr Peter Hoskins, for his mis­de­meanours. Mr Hoskins was invit­ed to attend Mr Bevan’s pun­ish­ment and duly did so.

Strokes were admin­is­tered on the bare but­tocks in batch­es of 12. The senior prison strap was used and wield­ed by SCO Rod­well, the Institute’s senior female offi­cer. The pun­ish­ment was exe­cut­ed by a female offi­cer as it was the ver­dict of the court that Mr Bevan ‘was inclined to be abu­sive to women when drunk’ and ‘would ben­e­fit psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly from the addi­tion­al humil­i­a­tion of low­er­ing his trousers in the pres­ence of a mem­ber of the oppo­site sex’.
Mr Bevan took his pun­ish­ment well, cry­ing out in pain only twice. Blis­ters were raised and there was mod­er­ate bleed­ing on the right but­tock. Mr Bevan then shook hands with SCO Rod­well, apol­o­gised to Mr Hoskins, as direct­ed by the court, and vowed to drink in mod­er­a­tion in future.

Signed: SCO RODWELL

Penge Penal Insti­tute, 11 Octo­ber, 10–30 am

 Three 17-year-old youths from East Penge dealt with sum­mar­i­ly by the Senior Cor­rec­tion Offi­cer, on the unan­i­mous rec­om­men­da­tion of the local mag­is­trates’ court. Offence: pet­ty pil­fer­ing in the green­gro­cers on the high street.

Youth A (male), the ring­leader, received 18 strokes of the birch, admin­is­tered on his bare but­tocks at 30-sec­ond inter­vals. Took pun­ish­ment well and thanked the SCO afterwards.

Youth B (male) received 12 strokes of the birch, also admin­is­tered on the bare but­tocks at 30-sec­ond inter­vals. Had to be held down by Deputy Cor­rec­tion Offi­cer Pren­der­gast for the last three strokes and received an addi­tion­al three strokes for refus­ing to thank his pun­ish­ers. Left the room in obvi­ous distress.

Youth C (female) was sen­tenced to 8 strokes of the cane. She was spared a birch­ing by the court as it was accept­ed that she had been, in part, an unwill­ing accom­plice. Burst into tears when it was explained to her that the cane strokes would be admin­is­tered full force on her bare but­tocks and begged to be allowed to retain her knick­ers. Request refused. Yelled her head off from the third stroke of the can­ing, but kept her posi­tion brave­ly, hav­ing been warned of seri­ous con­se­quences if she moved. Was picked up from the Insti­tute by her moth­er, who thanked the cor­rec­tion offi­cer for doing her duty and not being lenient with Youth C on grounds of her sex.

Signed: SCO RODWELL

LOG-BOOK OF THE PENGE PENAL INSTITUTE

Those of you who have read the Head­mistress Diaries on this web­site will know that we left the redoubtable Miss Black­stock in 1953, the time when she resigned as head­mistress, mar­ried a Mr Rod­well and moved south of the riv­er. I spec­u­lat­ed that she may well have been the same Mrs Rod­well whose name appears in the reg­is­ter of employ­ees of the Penge Penal Insti­tute in the late 1950s. Mrs Rod­well was an SCO, or Senior Cor­rec­tion Offi­cer, and in the days when it was almost uni­ver­sal­ly accept­ed that noth­ing did juve­nile delin­quents more good than a sound thrash­ing, the skills she had learnt at her old school must have stood her in good stead.

I have across a log-book of the long-defunct Penge Penal Insti­tute in the local library and cau­tious­ly con­clud­ed that the entries signed SCO Rod­well, span­ning sev­er­al years, may well be the work of our old friend Miss Black­stock. I will be intro­duc­ing a selec­tion of them here, start­ing with this eye-open­ing entry from 1958.