Source:-http://www.workhouses.org.uk/education/

The regulations issued by the Poor Law Commissioners required that:

  • No child under twelve years of age shall be punished by confinement in a dark room or during the night.
  • No corporal punishment shall be inflicted on any male child, except by the Schoolmaster or Master.
  • No corporal punishment shall be inflicted on any female child.
  • No corporal punishment shall be inflicted on any male child, except with a rod or other instrument, such as may have been approved of by the Guardians or the Visiting Committee.
  • No corporal punishment shall be inflicted on any male child until two hours shall have elapsed from the commission of the offence for which such punishment is inflicted. Whenever any male child is punished by corporal correction, the Master and Schoolmaster shall (if possible) be both present.
  • No male child shall be punished by flogging whose age may be reasonably supposed to exceed fourteen years.

As suggested by the last item in the above list, "flogging" could be administered to boys under 14.

(Work houses continued in one form or another till 1948)