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<\/a>Not so long ago, a popular concoction called Godfrey<\/em>\u2019<\/em>s Cordial<\/em> was widely available in Britain. A sweet syrup made of sugar, opium, and alcohol, it was routinely given to children \u2014 to keep them quiet, help them sleep, or simply \u201cjust in case.\u201d Cheap and sold over the counter with no restrictions, the syrup was especially common among working-class families. Advertisements claimed it helped mothers keep their jobs without being distracted by crying babies \u2014 thus supporting the family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There were dozens of such syrups on the market. Pharmacies sold bottles labelled \u201cfor fretful infants,\u201d each containing enough opium to knock out a grown adult. The consequences \u2014 fatalities, addiction, developmental delays \u2014 were not yet linked to these \u201cmiracle\u201d remedies. It wasn\u2019t until the 1900s that the first steps were taken to regulate their sale.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Victorian schools and orphanages widely employed what was known as \u201cdisciplinary furniture\u201d \u2014 pieces specifically designed to make children suffer in silence. Among them were wooden chairs of silence<\/em> \u2014 narrow-seated, high-backed, and without armrests. Children were forced to sit in them for hours, often with their hands tied or a book balanced on their head to instil posture and obedience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some schools also used leather collars or stiff neck braces that prevented children from turning their heads. If a pupil dared speak or fidget, they could be punished with a whipping, dousing in ice water, or being deprived of food. Reports of such practices survive in the archives of workhouse boarding schools in Yorkshire and Lancashire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 19th-century Britain, castor oil was seen as a kind of holy water by the puritanical education system. Parents, teachers, and wardens in boarding schools believed that any \u201cbad tendencies\u201d in a child \u2014 from laziness to stubbornness \u2014 stemmed from \u201cinternal impurity.\u201d Castor oil was administered not for medical reasons, but for moral and disciplinary purposes \u2014 often daily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There are recorded instances of children being physically restrained, their mouths forced open with metal devices, and the oil poured down their throats. This was especially common in Catholic and Anglican orphanages, where education was equated with cleansing both body and soul. The side effects \u2014 vomiting, cramps, dehydration \u2014 were seen as signs that the sinful body was being purified.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Before the introduction of juvenile justice laws, Britain\u2019s legal system made little distinction between adult and child offenders. Children as young as seven could be sentenced to prison and even to death (formally until 1908, though in practice minors hadn\u2019t been executed since the 1830s).<\/p>\n\n\n\n One of the most horrific examples of punishment was the *treadwheel*: a giant rotating wheel that prisoners \u2014 including children \u2014 were forced to walk on for 8\u201310 hours a day without pause. Sometimes these wheels generated energy, but more often they served no purpose other than punishment and \u201cdisciplinary purification.\u201d Children were housed in the same cells as adults, given the same meagre food, chained, and forced to do hard labor: sorting rags, chiseling stone, or hauling coal.<\/p>\n\n\n\nSilence Chairs and Leather Collars<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n
<\/a>Castor Oil<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n
<\/a>Children<\/strong>\u2019<\/strong>s Prisons and Treadwheels<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n
<\/a>Religious Orphanages<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n