Bullies, Beatings, Battles and Bruises: 'Great Days and Jolly Days' at One Mid-Victorian Public School.

The article examines social conditions at the private schools known as "public" schools in Great Britain in the mid-19th century, focusing on the role of sports in school life. Quotations from memoirs of school life written by graduates are cited as evidence that harsh living conditions, poor and inadequate food, frequent corporal punishment and inadequate supervision leading to endemic bullying and other problems were common features of these self-consciously elite schools. Sports, particularly rougher sports such as rugby and soccer, were often developed as an alternative outlet for the fist-fighting among students which was a notable feature of life at the public schools until at least 1850. The Marlborough School is used as an example of the upper class public school of the period.