# "Her father has threatened to horsewhip me on the steps of my club!" Really? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 2, 2012, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632 "2012-04-02T21:44:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 9:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632/1 "2012-04-02T21:44:35Z")
I’ve read several P.G. Wodehouse stories in which, for a humorously melodramatic effect, he mentions some unfortunate chap fear of being horsewhipped on the steps of his his club. Generally, the horsewhipping would arise from an unfortunate romantic entanglement, to be administered by the enraged father of some poor girl whose affections had been thrown away like a soiled glove. It’s fairly evident the the tone and context that one did not see public horse-whippings in London’s fashionable club district, even in the era when Wodehouse’s stories take place. At the same time, though, there’s an air of familiarity about it, as if such things really did happen a generation or two before. Was that really the case? After all, Wodehouse’s characters occasionally refer to a daughter “not being the type to defy a parent” and her father being of the strict Victorian type. So did these public extrajudicial horse-whippings actually take place, presumably in the 19th Century and earlier? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632/2 "2012-04-02T21:56:18Z")
[Oh yeah, it happened.](http://victoriancalendar.blogspot.com/2011/06/july-22-1869-horse-whipping-in-clubland.html) More of a pre-Victorian thing than a Victorian one, apparently, and by Wodehouse’s own time, as you noted, the custom had dwindled to little more than a joke. But it definitely used to be a thing. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632/3 "2012-04-02T22:11:33Z")
And Trollope’s [1858 novel _Dr. Thorne_](http://www.classicreader.com/book/434/21/) treats the scenario as a quite realistic contemporary one: > [@](#): > > Miss Gresham, however, never did become Mrs Moffat. […] just two days after [her brother] Frank’s departure, a very long, elaborate, and clearly explanatory letter was received at Greshamsbury. […] The long and the short of this was, that Mr Moffat signified his intention of breaking off the match without offering any intelligible reason. […] > > But both Lady Arabella and the squire were greatly vexed. The former had made the match, and the latter, having consented to it, had incurred deeper responsibilities to enable him to bring it about. […] It is, moreover, an unpleasant thing for a gentleman to have his daughter jilted; perhaps peculiarly so to have her jilted by a tailor’s son. […] > > This last resolve on the part of Mr Moffat had not altogether been unsuspected by some of the Greshams, though altogether unsuspected by the Lady Arabella. Frank […] was not quite unprepared when the information reached him. He consequently bought his cutting-whip […] > > And now, having arrived at the front of the club […] Frank remains standing on the pavement, under the shade of the high stone area-railing […] > > Mr Moffat, with his hat on, prepared for the street, appeared in the hall […] > > Frank, his heart leaping the while, saw his prey, and retreated two steps behind the area-railing, the dread weapon already well poised in his hand. ---
**Author:** ![Peanuthead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peanuthead/32/360_2.png) [@Peanuthead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peanuthead)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632/4 "2012-04-02T22:25:05Z")
There may have been an actual incident or two but it probably had become more of a trite remark like “I’ll kiss your ass in Macy’s window”. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632/5 "2012-04-02T22:34:25Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > [Oh yeah, it happened.](http://victoriancalendar.blogspot.com/2011/06/july-22-1869-horse-whipping-in-clubland.html) The Lord Charles Carrington mentioned there might be the person who went on the become [1st Marquess of Lincolnshire](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Wynn_Carrington,_1st_Marquess_of_Lincolnshire), a prominent Liberal politician, and Governor of New South Wales. (I know of him because [Carrington](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington,_New_South_Wales), a suburb of Newcastle, is named after him. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632/6 "2012-04-02T22:42:29Z")
James Gordon Bennett, son of the founder of the New York Herald, drunkenly mistook a fireplace at his fiancé’s family mansion for a urinal, and was later horsewhipped by her brother. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632/7 "2012-04-02T22:56:34Z")
The standard scenarios for horsewhipping seem to have been chastising someone who insulted or degraded a lady, and retaliating against someone who published insulting or scandalous allegations in the press, as in [this 1827 example](http://www.towrangstockade.com.au/history-William-Redfern.pdf). ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [April 2, 2012, 11:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632/8 "2012-04-02T23:30:33Z")
The publisher James Fraser was beaten by Grantley Berkeley with a weighted whip in 1836 for refusing to name the anonymous reviewer of his novel, _Berkeley Castle_. Both cross-sued. Fraser obtained £100 damages for assault, and Berkeley obtained 40/-. for libel. Fraser later died of his injuries. > [@](#): > > \*Accompanied by his brother Craven, on the afternoon of 3 August Berkeley went to the bookseller’s shop at 215 Regent Street, London, kept by James Fraser, the publisher and proprietor of the magazine. Craven Berkeley posted himself on guard there at the shop door, and Grantley, who had a strong, athletic build, confronted the rather puny publisher, demanding from him the name of the anonymous critic. Failing to obtain this information, he felled his feeble antagonist with a blow, and then, standing over him, beat him savagely about the head and face with the butt-end of a heavy, gold-headed hunting-whip—with effects said to have lasted until Fraser’s death five years later. \* ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632/9 "2012-04-03T00:54:10Z")
The most famous case in the United States was probably the caning of Senator Charles Sumner on the floor of the US Senate by Congressman Brooks, in retaliation against Sumner’s insult of Brooks’ uncle, another Senator. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632/10 "2012-04-03T02:53:00Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > [Oh yeah, it happened.](http://victoriancalendar.blogspot.com/2011/06/july-22-1869-horse-whipping-in-clubland.html) > > More of a pre-Victorian thing than a Victorian one, apparently, and by Wodehouse’s own time, as you noted, the custom had dwindled to little more than a joke. But it definitely used to be a thing. Although the assault conviction in your link does seem to suggest that it Wasn’t Done, even if it was. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632/11 "2012-04-03T03:05:05Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > Although the assault conviction in your link does seem to suggest that it Wasn’t Done, even if it was. 😃 Oh, I’m not claiming that the **law** generally endorsed the custom of horsewhipping a man for ungentlemanly behavior. Similarly, duelling was illegal and punishable by criminal penalties in many societies where it was still socially acceptable. Just because such extra-judicial means of conflict resolution were outlawed doesn’t mean they didn’t happen, though. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632/12 "2012-04-03T03:27:48Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > The Lord Charles Carrington mentioned there might be the person who went on the become [1st Marquess of Lincolnshire](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Wynn_Carrington,_1st_Marquess_of_Lincolnshire), a prominent Liberal politician, and Governor of New South Wales. (I know of him because [Carrington](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrington,_New_South_Wales), a suburb of Newcastle, is named after him. No, that was his son. The Carrington of the article is [Robert Carrington, 2nd Baron Carrington](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Carrington,_2nd_Baron_Carrington). The great-nephew of the son is [Lord Carrington, the 6th Baron](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Carington,_6th_Baron_Carrington) who was Thatcher’s Foreign Secretary at the time of the Falklands. ---
**Author:** ![handsomeharry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9c0ed/32.png) [@handsomeharry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handsomeharry)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632/13 "2012-04-03T03:28:54Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > James Gordon Bennett, son of the founder of the New York Herald, drunkenly mistook a fireplace at his fiancé’s family mansion for a urinal, and was later horsewhipped by her brother. More details, please! This is great!!:D:D ---
**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632/14 "2012-04-03T07:42:32Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > More details, please! This is great!!:D:D I remember that story from the _Guinness Book of Records_, 1971 edition, under the heading of “Most expensive faux pas” or similar, since it caused a multimillionaire wedding to be called off. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Rachellelogram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rachellelogram/32/8689_2.png) [@Rachellelogram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rachellelogram)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 8:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632/15 "2012-04-03T08:48:38Z")
It happened in Sweeney Todd, so I’m assured it was real. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632/16 "2012-04-03T12:35:04Z")
> [@handsomeharry](#): > > More details, please! This is great!!:D:D [“James Gordon Bennett was publicly horse-whipped this morning, by Frederick May, brother of the girl to whom Bennett was engaged to be married.”](http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/gordon-bennett.html) ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632/17 "2012-04-03T14:23:22Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > And Trollope’s [1858 novel _Dr. Thorne_](http://www.classicreader.com/book/434/21/) treats the scenario as a quite realistic contemporary one: Interestingly, one of Trollope’s novels also features a duel, which by then was forbidden by law but apparently still happened once in a while; the duellers had to go to a beach in Belgium. Also, it was considered somewhat embarrassing socially. Duelling was in the odd position of being a scandalous embarrassment occasionally required by one’s honor. ---
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632/18 "2012-04-03T15:28:49Z")
Hmm, maybe we should bring back horsewhipping and duels. I would watch a duel. I also think we should bring back feeding Christians to lions, but I suspect that wouldn’t be a very popular idea. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632/19 "2012-04-03T16:08:01Z")
Seeing as gentlemen would carry horsewhips everywhere because they actually rode horses it’s not really very strange. And presumably “the club” was somewhere you would know you would be able to find the bounder or cad as the case may be. The modern equivalent is beating someone with a tyre iron or a maglight in the heat of passion because you find them schlepping your daugther or in bed with your wife. And that still happens plenty, just watch “cops”. ---
**Author:** ![Dogzilla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e480ec/32.png) [@Dogzilla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogzilla)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2012, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632/20 "2012-04-03T16:30:43Z")
> [@coremelt](#): > > Seeing as gentlemen would carry horsewhips everywhere because they actually rode horses it’s not really very strange. And presumably “the club” was somewhere you would know you would be able to find the bounder or cad as the case may be. > > The modern equivalent is beating someone with a tyre iron or a maglight in the heat of passion because you find them schlepping your daugther or in bed with your wife. And that still happens plenty, just watch “cops”. I don’t really know Yiddish, but shouldn’t that be\* schtupping\*, not _schlepping_? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/her-father-has-threatened-to-horsewhip-me-on-the-steps-of-my-club-really/617632.md?page=2)