Spanking implements - Tawse
Friday, January 20th, 2006A tawse is a typically Scottish implement for physical punishment, called tawsing after it, that was often used for educational discipline instead of the English cane (which, like the horse crop, was however used in private schools, usually on bare bottoms or the hands).

It consists of a thick, relatively hard piece of leather, often made by a saddler, rather like a prison strap, that splits into two, three or sometimes more parallel tails. Confusingly it was frequently called ‘the belt’. The solid products of the best-known producer, Lochgelly, became a household name, feared by punishees; hence also spelled without a capital L.
It was long quite common, also in state schools, to chastise Scottish pupil’s bottoms and legs with it, and it was not unusual for recipients to attempt relieving the burning sensation by pressing their posterior against a cooling stane (large piece of natural stone)- in fact such ‘disrespectful’ use of tombstones nearby schools was, if found out, say by the dominie of the kirk, sometimes punished with another spanking. For serious offenses headmasters often gave a terrifying tawsing in school assembly, preferably on the bare buttocks; a 1968 teacher’s code banned its use for spanking. However for common offenses it was applied on the hands in class, and apparently far more frequently than in English schools: even in the 20th century most Scottish pupils felt it and many even more than once a month.
Since the EU-ordered ban on all corporal punishment in the UK, it survives mainly in BDSM and corporal punishment scenes in the UK (especially in Scotland where there exist several private clubs where the tawse is used in corporal punishment play).








