Wicked Wessex!
Cat-o'-nine-tails
Object from: Poole Museum
Life was hard for sailors in the 1700s and 1800s. They faced harsh punishments, including being flogged with the dreaded cat-o’-nine-tails.
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Life was hard for sailors in the 1700s and 1800s. They faced harsh punishments, including being flogged with the dreaded cat-o’-nine-tails.
Poole was a maritime centre in the 1700s and 1800s, but life was tough for the men who crewed the ships.
The cat-o’-nine-tails was a type of whip used in the Royal Navy. A sailor could be flogged for anything from drunkenness to desertion. Each of the cat’s ‘tails’ was knotted to increase the pain of the lashes.
The cat was usually kept in a cloth bag, hence the term ‘to let the cat out of the bag’.
The most severe form of this punishment was being ‘flogged around the fleet’. This involved the offender being rowed in turn to each of the ships in port, where he would receive a flogging, witnessed by the ship’s crew, before being rowed to the next one. A surgeon was present to ensure the sailor was fit to continue.
This practice was abolished in 1879 but had probably stopped long before.
Poole Museums chose the cat-o’nine-tails to fit the theme of Wicked Wessex. The museum has a rich and varied collection of objects from Poole’s time as the maritime centre of Wessex. The cat-o’-nine-tails pictured is actually a replica.
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