The first time this was put into force the whole school booed the Headmaster as he opened his mouth, and it took him two hours to get through calling the “absence,” though various tutors did all they could to help him detect the boys who were the ringleaders of the disorder. After trying to discover the principal culprits and failing, Keate finally determined to punish the last remove of the Upper Fifth and the whole of the Lower Fifth (there was then no Middle Division), whom he considered responsible for the outbreak, by making them attend a five-o’clock “absence.” Some ninety boys absented themselves, or rather hid behind the trees in the playing fields where this “absence” was called, and purposely did not answer their names. The situation was grave, and at first it seemed likely that all of these rebels would be expelled; eventually, however, Keate determined to be more lenient and merely announced that he would “flog the lot.”
SWISHING WHOLESALE
When the first batch came up for punishment in the library a scene of riot took place, and as the first boy knelt down on the block a shower of eggs smashed round Keate; in fact, after three victims had suffered, the Headmaster’s clothes had got into such a state owing to the unsavoury missiles hurled at him, that he had to go home and change. On his return, however, he was seen to be accompanied by a number of assistant masters, and owing to their aid in keeping order he had finished swishing the whole of the ninety boys by eight o’clock that evening.
The masters must have had their work cut out to subdue the insubordination of such turbulent boys. Though the number of these boys was close on 500—later, from 1821 to 1827, it varied between 528 and 612—at no time were there more than nine assistants, including the Lower Master. While some of the forms in the Lower School only had twenty or thirty boys, certain divisions in the Upper School were of quite unwieldy size. In 1820 Dr. Keate’s own division had swelled to 198. He then relieved himself by creating the Middle Division of the Fifth, but he continued to keep about 100 boys under his own charge at the end of Upper School, where much disorder prevailed.
All sorts of jokes and tricks were indulged in, and about 1810 it became a regular practice during the Winter Half to try and put out the candles in the two great chandeliers. There had originally been three of these, but according to tradition the third had been broken in the great rebellion some thirty years before. On one occasion a huge stone that was shied at the chandelier went within an inch of Keate’s head and cracked the panel behind him. Having somehow got to know the culprit, Keate let it be known that it was a boy at a certain dame’s, at the same time declaring that the only chance the boy had was to give himself up and trust to his leniency; otherwise he would be expelled. The boy was George Dallas, a straightforward fellow. He immediately went to Keate, confessed, and solemnly assured the Doctor that he had never intended to hurt him. Keate said he believed him, but of course Dallas must know that the lightest punishment he deserved was a good flogging, and that flogging he got.
A large part of the boys’ time seems to have been spent devising ingenious forms of annoying Keate, who sat enthroned in a spacious elevated desk, enclosed on all sides, like a pew, with two doors, one on each side. One fine morning he entered Upper School, and, going to his desk, tried to open one door, and found it was fastened. He went round, grinning, growling, and snarling, to the other side; the door there had been screwed up too. The desk was up to the breast of a tall man and as high as Keate’s head; nevertheless, laying his hand on the top of it, he lightly vaulted in, the feat being saluted with loud cheers and a hearty laugh. This made the Doctor more angry than ever. “I will make some of you suffer,” he said, and he did; for the next day, to the general astonishment, he called up all the boys who had been concerned in the screwing up and soundly flogged them. The secret of this was that Cartland, Keate’s servant, suspecting that mischief was afoot, secreting himself between the ceiling and roof of Upper School, had witnessed the whole screwing-up process through the rose from which hung a chandelier, and carefully noted down the names of the boys concerned.
Another time a huge mastiff was put under Keate’s seat, but the Doctor was fiercer than the dog, which ran away, frightened at his angry gaze.
THIS ISN’T A GIRLS’ SCHOOL
One of the old school, Keate had no sympathy with innovations. Though he himself is said to have always carried an umbrella in sunshine as well as rain, he could not bear to see a boy with one. “Wet, sir? Don’t talk to me of weather, sir,” he would say; “you must make the best of it. This isn’t a girls’ school.” By way of paying their Headmaster out for such a remark, a party of boys once made an expedition to the neighbouring village of Upton, took down a large board inscribed in smart gilt letters “Seminary for Young Ladies,” and fixed it up over the great west entrance into the school-yard, where it met the Doctor’s angry eyes in the morning.
In spite of his stern disposition and rough ways Keate was highly sensitive as to ridicule, and especially disliked attempts to caricature his appearance.