Eastbourne manslaughter
The case concerned the death of 15-year-old Reginald Cancellor (some sources give his name as Chancellor[1] and his age as 13 or 14)[2] at the hands of his teacher, Thomas Hopley.
Hopley used corporal punishment with the stated intention of overcoming what he perceived as stubbornness on Cancellor's part, but instead beat the boy to death.
The case became an important legal precedent in the United Kingdom for discussions of corporal punishment in schools and reasonable limits on discipline.
Thomas Hopley, aged 41 at the time of the incident,[3] was a schoolmaster in Eastbourne who ran a private boarding school from his home at 22 Grand Parade.
[7] Reginald was the son of John Henry Cancellor (1799–1860), a master of the Court of Common Pleas and a "man of fair position" from Barnes, Surrey.
His thighs were "reduced to a perfect jelly" and his body was covered in bruises and cuts, including two inch-deep holes in his right leg,[11] deep enough to allow the medical examiner, Robert Willis, to touch the bone underneath.
[5][14] A female servant named Ellen Fowler, when questioned by investigators, reported that she had heard Cancellor screaming and being beaten from 10 pm until midnight and that, shortly thereafter, he abruptly fell silent.
Hopley attempted to explain away the blood on the candlestick by attributing it to a broken blister on his hand, but did not offer an explanation for Cancellor's injuries.
[4][7] Hopley aroused further suspicion when he asked journalists present at the inquest not to include details of the corporal punishment in their stories, "in order to spare the feelings of the deceased family as of my own".
[7] Hopley's trial took place at Lewes Assizes on 23 July 1860, before the Chief Justice of the Queen's Bench Sir Alexander Cockburn and a jury.
Hopley claimed to be a paedagogical follower of John Locke, who had decried the use of corporal punishment except in cases of extreme obstinacy on the part of the student.
[7] Other witnesses included the Hopleys' laundress, Roberts, three members of the coastguard who had seen lights on in the house late at night, a local constable, and the town registrar.
Neither did Ballantine call Professor John Eric Erichsen of University College Hospital, who had conducted a second autopsy on Cancellor on 11 May and suggested that "the misleading appearance of the body was attributable to an undiagnosed blood condition akin to haemophilia".
If it be administered for the gratification of passion or of rage, or if it be immoderate or excessive in its nature or degree, or if it be protracted beyond the child's powers of endurance, or with an instrument unfitted for the purpose and calculated to produce danger to life and limb: in all such cases the punishment is excessive, the violence unlawful, and if evil consequences to life or limb ensue, then the person inflicting it is answerable to the law, and if death ensues it will be manslaughter.
[1] He portrayed himself as a victim of public opinion, claiming that "a mournful accident was swelled up into a bloody midnight murder, and how it has been brought about that my unfortunate name has been branded, not simply through the United Kingdom, but through the civilised world, as one of the most execrable monsters or of madmen.
[8] Hopley's fame was short-lived; a month after his conviction, the press was focused on another case of corporal punishment, that of Caroline Lefevre, whose arms were allegedly burnt by her teacher.
The verdict sparked outrage among the public, who believed that "a great injustice had been done", and that Fanny should not be forced to remain married to an abusive convicted killer.
[22] Hopley largely withdrew from the public eye after the trial, becoming a private tutor in London and publishing pamphlets on spiritualism in the late 1860s.
He died at University College Hospital on 24 June 1876 and was buried on the western side of Highgate Cemetery,[7] with his brother, the painter Edward Hopley.
[18] He pointed to the autopsy finding of fluid in Cancellor's brain to support his assertions and argued that this effusion would have caused physical weakness.
[18] R v Hopley was used as an archetypal case for legal commentaries about corporal punishment until physical discipline was officially banned in British schools over a century later.
[23] Hopley's defence, known as "reasonable chastisement", became a frequently used response to charges of corporal punishment and was incorporated into the Children and Young Persons Act 1933.
