A Very Special School

The young doctor thought that the police should be involved, as it was clear from Bromley's revelations that things were badly amiss at the school. Well, the upshot was that the police made an unexpected raid on the school one Saturday evening and found the Commander and several of the housemasters in what they described in their report as "compromising lewd and unnatural situations" both among themselves and with three of four of the older boys.

From then on, things went from bad to worse and it was downhill for the school all the way. The local press got hold of the story and had a banner headline: "Sodomy at Moulton-Midmarsh Approved School" and as a subheading; "Headmaster and staff accused of unnatural sexual relations with boys".

The case came to trial with enormous publicity as this was a serious case of sodomy, which although member of the general public pretended did not exist, were, as ever, avid followers of the court proceedings and totally enthralled by the revelations of what went on at the school. Then as now, sex sells or should I say, sold? The Commander, the architect of the disaster, was sentenced to five years in prison for sodomy and for inflicting grievous bodily harm on one of his charges. The several housemasters were each sentenced to three years confinement with hard labour and the four senior boys involved, all twenty years old, were each sent to prison for two years with hard labour and given eighteen strokes of the birch for their part in the affair.

The Minister of Education accused the Town Council of Moulton Midmarsh of negligence in allowing the Commander to run the school free of any constraints. The Council, in turn, retorted that it was the duty of the Minister to institute such controls and to and fro the ball was batted between the two, with, of course, no conclusion.

But there was a dramatic end to this whole affair. The Minister had, of course, appointed a temporary headmaster and staff to replace the Commander and to ensure the orderly running of the school, but some three months after the incident, a decision was taken to close down the school definitively; the inmates were distributed across a number of other similar institutions all over the country and the buildings were put up for sale. The only bright thing was that the Government of the day reaped a handsome profit on the sale of the buildings, a minor miracle, when one considers how inept are the powers that be in making money out of anything they touch.

So there you have the sad story of the creation, the decline and the fall of the Moulton-Midmarsh Reform School all within ten brief years. I thought, having stumbled upon it by chance, that this story of a totally forgotten era, might be of interest, possibly of greater interest to most of you than my commemoration volume in celebration of the annals of the first hundred years of existence of Midfen College, which, by now you may have forgotten took over the buildings of the Moulton-Midmarsh reform school. But, of course, any of you who are interested to read this chronological account of the college, can obtain a copy, free of charge by applying directly to the Bursar at Midfen College, Moulton-Midmarsh, Cambridge; I believe there are still many copies still available. I am afraid that you might find it dull reading compared to the account of the ten years of Moulton-Midmarsh under the leadership of Commander Reginald Douglas Pratt-Mainwaring, but do give it a try; it may help you get to sleep, if nothing else!

THE END