Wigan Album

As an ex-WGS pupil myself of a decade or two earlier I sadly, have to tell you, that there were a few masters (very few) who occasionally resorted to physical beatings or attacks on certain pupils who annoyed them - they were small men in all senses of the word and abused their position and defamed their profession. Today they would be prosecuted and banned of that I have no doubt.

I remember him. His brother Harry played football for Bishop Auckland and played at Wembley in the FA Amateur Cup Final. He came from Abram originally

I wonder if he had a 'spanking' fetish and he enjoyed himself being 'spanked' too.

I remember him well, as a goalkeaper myself and being of the right age to do so. Harry was also a teacher, maths i think, he started his football career (in which he always remained an amateur)with Wigan Athletic and went on to play for several clubs.He refused to turn professional because he could earn more money as a teacher, compare that statement to todays footballers/teachers salaries.I think he also represented GB in the 1956 Olympics which were held in Melbourne

Mark, I'm not saying it was right for your teacher to have punished you in that way, far from it but why did you refuse to write the essay? I know "The Inside of an empty box" is not the most riveting of subjects but you could have used a bit of imagination, e.g. pretending you were the box crying out for something to hold etc etc. It was wrong of the teacher to cane you like that but to my way of thinking, you invited it by refusing to do as you were told.

PS. It's Harry i remember,not his brother although i remember many sadistic teachers like 'Whacker' unfortunately.

Maqrgaret the prefects at the Grammar must have been Tom Brown's Schooldays fans as they modelled themselves on Flashman i.e. cruel but cowards. I refused to write the essay as I had zero respect for them and would never do their bidding. Why was I in prefects detentions? for refusing to call one of them "sir".

Jack Sharrat was my maths teacher at Hindley and Abram G S in 1952. It was because of his efforts that I passed my GCE O Level exams. He wasn't all bad and he never caned anybody at H.A.G.S. His brother, Harry, was in the 6th form when I started at the school in 1947.He was a good goalkeeper but was prone to show off thus making stupid mistakes. His obituary appeared in The Times newspaper when he died a few years ago.

Like Alan H I also knew Jack Sharratt whilst at HAGS 1951/56.He was always looked up to as being a decent teacher/individual.Perhaps WGS pupils weren't as obedient as HAGS pupils (lol)

I remember Jack Sharratt. There were other teachers also who used corporal punishment, Messrs. Hall and Brown spring to mind straight away, but there were others. But even with jaundiced hindsight I still don't believe any of them were getting anything gratuitous out of it. I think it was just their way of getting us to do as we were told.

And I think we were fortunate at WGS, I stand to be corrected but I believe corporal punishment was taken to a different level for our mates at John Rigby.

I don't think Mr Sharratt was a bad man and I met him a couple of times in later years and he was perfectly charming. Many of the other teachers has their own personalised means of punishment ranging from a pump(shoe)with a chalked "X" on it to a retort stand bar.Another was a slap across the chops.

Not forgetting of course that most arrogant of them. Paddy Gore.

Can't say whether I was unlucky or not but in 6 years at WGS, I witnessed during a lesson one attack on a pupil, a series of blows and kicks after being pulled over his desk onto a helpless crumpled heap on the floor. Why? he'd been sitting in an "unacceptable" manner to the teacher taking the lesson. Another time a pupil standing obediently at the side of a master received without warning, not one but two, almighty full blooded slaps across the face, if the open hand had been clenched I'm in no doubt he'd have been rendered unconscious. Why? he'd made a wisecrack that amused us all. Those days of unjustified violence, thank goodness, are long gone.

I was there from 1942-7 and I saw Pop Denning uppercut Gordon Thorley in the gym, then pick him up, knock him down again and then slap him across the face several times. We were all petrified at this. I reckon that Denning was a sadist

Fred, "pop" was still at it, 10 years later - the fact he was gassed in WW1 was no excuse in my opinion.

i got into similar trouble with a prefect for grabbing someones cap on the way home and dropping it out the window of the bus ,he got it back the following morning has it was my stop,detention followed for behaviour unbecoming a wgs pupil.has i never read the detention postings, i got into a visit to the head.i used to do my homework in detention.
that particular soft lad prefect was followed all the way home,and he got ever so slightly agitated at my presence when we got off the bus home together ,me four stops past mine.a few words in his ear did the trick ,no more detention.he was great one for bullyiing younger pupils.

James said:

"Those days of unjustified violence, thank goodness, are long gone"

And also 'gone' are the days when kids had respect for other people, maybe the kids of today, would benefit from some violent, sadistic, behaviour from teachers and get some decency flogged and beaten into them.

So that's the way forward Stuart? Really? Certainly the stories from numerous countries across the world where torture is a way of life would certainly share your views.

What a pity that the photograph of Jack Sharratt should have provoked little more than a debate on the rights and wrongs of corporal punishment. The past, of course, is a foreign country; they do things differently there and corporal punishment was unfortunately the norm in the 60s and 70s. The men who administered the punishment were not all sadists nor did they suffer from a "spanking fetish": they were frequently men who had served in the forces during the war ( Jack Sharratt was a major in the army ) and for them strict discipline for insubordination was the accepted way to "turn boys into men". Obviously it did not necessarily succeed!
Jack Sharratt was possessed of a brilliant brain ( one of the youngest to be awarded a First in maths at Liverpool) and a dedicated teacher. Perhaps the gentleman who refused to write an essay imposed by a prefect might like to ponder for a moment what the effect would have been on the school's prefect system had Mr Sharratt supported him and not the prefect.

I would like to think that there are men out there who recognise, as the former HAGs' student does, the debt they owe Jack Sharratt for ensuring they got the best exam results possible rather than concentrating on a backside still apparently smarting some 40 years on. I was married to Harry and personally knew the efforts my brother-in-law made on behalf of his students. As Shakespeare puts it: "the evil that men do lives after them/ The good is oft interred with their bones." I hope there might be others who can offer a more comprehensive overview!

Hitler loved dogs apparently.

Hitler may well have loved dogs. I believe he was also an aspiring artist! However, the implication of the comparison is that Jack Sharratt took a sadistic pleasure in caning . What most schoolboys would have been unaware of was that there was a rigid system in place at the time regarding caning. There would be one cane for use in school, kept in the headmaster's study and certain teachers only designated by the Head to administer it. As Deputy Head, Jack would have been given the task of punishing boys whose behaviour would have been reported to him or the headmaster by other members of staff. Canings were usually witnessed, again by designated people and a record made. This is why pupils from Hindley and Abram GS do not remember Jack Sharratt ever caning anyone; it was not his designated job there. Somewhere in the WWGS archive material, I am sure,there will be the official record of the beatings described here, together with the names of the teachers who made the complaints of bad behaviour. Nobody will deny that caning boys was an Inhumane practice and thankfully it has gone but it was the official system then and it would be wrong to suggest all those who had to wield the cane took gratuitous pleasure in it. It was frequently painful for them in a different way.

"...a rigid system in place at the time regarding caning. There would be one cane for use in school, kept in the headmaster's study and certain teachers only designated by the Head to administer it."

Strictly speaking this is true. Also you didn't mention there was a book to record these canings I understand, although how this was audited is anyones guess.

However you don't seem to be aware that other corporal punishments took place on a fairly regular basis, and which were not formally recorded. Various implements used by teachers, some of whom I have already mentioned. I saw boys being hit with for example: hands clenched or otherwise, plimsolls, hardback books, a car radio aerial and a chair spindle. I once saw a boy manually assaulted by a teacher for not having backed his exercise book. The reason it was not backed was because the teacher had seconds before torn off the backing in a fit of rage. He was absolutely beside himself. It was quite bizarre.
To repeat myself though, overall I think we were relatively lucky at WGS compared with other schools in the town at the time.

Apologies, you did mention that a record was kept, I missed that.

Diana I quite agree that comments made here seem to unfairly reflect on your brother-in-law who without doubt was fulfilling his legal role as it was then accepted and recognised. Many remarks here however are made in general about the very few rogue teachers, who by their unmonitored actions, abused and brought into disrepute a system of punishment that was controlled and objectively monitored. The result is seen in postings which come from some of their hapless victims or those who witnessed those unsanctioned actions, outside the legal framework, which definitely was not the case with Jack.

I was a pupil at WIgan Grammar School from 1966 to 1972 and have never forgotten Jack Sharratt. He did indeed seem to relish using the cane and would take every opportunity to do so. Only the head, W G Merriman, and the deputy head, Jack Sharratt were official administrators of corporal punishment but some other teachers did use a variety of implements. The head was a very decent man and had to use the cane when appropriate. We always had the impression that he was reluctant to do so. The converse was true with Jack Sharratt. J S would even patrol the corridors trying to find boys to cane for the slightest misdemeanour. Once he found me who had been sent outside the classroom for larking about and he seized the opportunity to give me 3 strokes. The zeal, enthusiasm and relish, together with his predatory manner, distinguished him from all other teachers. I can understand his sister in law wanting to defend him and she has enlightened us about more positive aspects of his character and his abilities but the fact remains that how he behaved as a cane wielding teacher is entirely a different matter and cannot be defended or justified. A different era most certainly but other teachers of the same era did not behave the same way.

Diana, your loyalty is commendable. However, you presumably were not there, and conseqiently your suggestion that the behaviour of Mr Sharratt was due to the regime which prevailed at the time rings very hollow. There was no guideline which came anywhere near to guiding him to administer the cane to an entire class of 12 year olds, because a timetable mix up saw them in the wrong room. One of many shameful episodes in WGS's disciplinary record.

The caning of an entire class does not surprise me with Jack Sharratt. No other teacher would have gone this far and this is what separated him from other members of staff. It is cruel. I left in Summer 1972 and in Autumn 1972 he performed a public caning on the stage immediately after morning assembly in front of the entire junior section of the school. The 3 boys concerned were given 6 strokes each for extorting money from other boy(s). This is / was a very serious matter and probably should have been dealt with by suspension or expulsion. By all accounts the caning was so vicious that it was the talk of the school for years afterwards. No matter how bad the schoolboys' crimes a public flogging by an adult to 3 junior school pupils in 1972 was an even worse crime to many people. I believe the Wigan Education Authority became involved. As an ex pupil I started to loose touch with WGS and so do not know the final outcome.

It still hurts thinking about it

Jack Sharratt certainly was the master designated to administer the cane. In 1968 the school rules were that if you were caught fighting by a member of staff then it was automatic caning. I was caught, by the caretaker as it happens, and so was ordered to the Deputy Head's office.

However by the time I arrived I had already been taken to Wigan hospital where an Xray revealed that I had managed, thanks to Michael Peet's very hard head, to break three fingers of my right hand. I didn't get caned. I had always supposed that even Mr Sharratt couldn't bring himself to cane a boy with his lower arm in plaster, in a sling. Lucky Michael Peet also got away with not being caned. For the record Michael Peet was the first person to sign my plaster cast later that day.

Although I am not from Wigan I came across this item while looking for a friend. I feel it is unfair to vilify the teacher for doing his duty. We had a Senior Mistress who patrolled the corridors during lessons. Anyone outside a door for misbehaving got sent to her office and caned. It happened to me several times. There were rumours about her liking to cane boy’s bottoms and the normal jokes. However I met her a few years later and she remembered me. She apologised and said it was just doing her duties as laid down by the governors and Headmaster. She went up in my eyes after that.