Shaping the Spirit: Girls Reformatory Schools in England, c.1854-1933

This article will explore the use of corporal punishment in Reformatory Schools for girls in nineteenth-century England. The period under study is 1854, when Reformatory schools were certified by government legislation, and 1933, when they merged with Industrial Schools to form Approved Schools. This historical criminological study focuses on understanding the ways those in authority and power responded to offending, rather than the offending itself. As such, the use of physical force in disciplining and controlling institutionalised offending children within reformatory schools has been explored alongside how those institutions justified the use and extent of corporal punishment, and how the views were reflected, or differed, at the political level. To achieve this the following primary source material were turned to: Home Office archival concerning reformatories and the use of corporal punishment more broadly; regional archival records of Devon and Exeter Reformatory School for Girls to form a case study focused on the institutions surviving Punishment Books; and, the Inspector of Reformatory Schools of Great Britain annual reports. Despite historical and contemporary claims, it will be demonstrated that corporal punishment of girls within residential schools was not a matter of last resort, despite contemporary and historical claims to the contrary.