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More than 5000 entries on the history, culture and life of Britain (published in 1993 by Macmillan, now out of print)
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corporal punishment
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Flogging was in past centuries a common punishment within the law, particularly in the navy, and birching and caning were a characteristic part of discipline in the *public schools – with the oddity of le *vice anglais as a possible by-product. When Lord Goddard went to Buckingham Palace in 1932 on appointment as a judge of the King's Bench, George V said he hoped he would not hesitate to sentence violent criminals to flogging – a sentiment with which Goddard agreed, for as lord chief justice he opposed the abolition in 1948 of corporal punishment in the British criminal system.
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In the Isle of Man it remained on the statute books in the early 1990s, but local magistrates were advised not to sentence anyone to birching after the European Court of Human Rights pronounced it to be 'cruel and unusual'.
During the 1980s there was strong pressure from teachers to ban the caning of children, and in 1986 a bill to outlaw corporal punishment in state schools was narrowly passed in both Houses of Parliament (by two votes in the Lords and by one in the Commons).
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