The Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth

MAKING WAYWARD YOUTH SOCIALLY USEFUL

In 1919, at the urging of provincial attorney general J. W. de Beque Farris, David Brankin became the superintendent of the Point Grey British Columbia Boy's Industrial School. He followed the troubled regime of Donald Donaldson, a former men's clothier, who was investigated by a 1918 grand jury over his use of "severe and brutal punishment." "Inefficiency, brutality, and refined cruelty" at the institution was coupled with a "teaching staff" that was "sadly inadequate" for youth rehabilitation. Diane L. Matters believes Donaldson's budget was severely cut during World War I, prompting his harsh measures.¹ Brankin immediately hired more staff to improve material conditions at the school. He removed window bars, fired the guards, repaired buildings, [End Page 41] repaired shop equipment, planted a vegetable garden, engaged new teaching staff, formed a brass band, and began using a military-style hierarchical ranking/reward system for inmates. When "given jobs to do in which they are interested," Brankin believed "boys were put on their honor" to behave properly. He erected a large inspiring sign: "We Are Making Good under the Honor System."²

The lives of youth who were incarcerated within juvenile penal institutions such as industrial schools have received scattered attention in the historical study of childhood and youth. Outside of public schools, facilities like industrial schools were a major force in shaping the lives of young offenders from the late nineteenth to mid-twentieth century. Tamara Myers describes industrial schools as being driven by a kind of "rehabilitative idealism" to refashion juvenile offenders.³ The expertise of institution managers was questionable and, as this article argues, was exemplified by the type of autocratic leadership exhibited by David Brankin. Neil Sutherland concurs that corporal punishment was frequently used in industrial schools to confine an array of "bad children."⁴ Patricia T. Rooke and R. L. Schnell believed that "the managers of these institutions were compelled … to make them [inmates] socially useful" through work.⁵ Joan Sangster states industrial schools forced working-class children into "respectable" manual laboring careers as they were believed to be "fitted intellectually for such work."⁶ And Donald Sinclair writes that industrial schools were too large, inadequately staffed, and underfunded as the "keynote was cost."⁷ The historiography of industrial schools requires case studies of individual institutions and their mangers.⁸

Industrial school managers had to file yearly reports highlighting their child-saving efforts. This article explores how one institutional manager, David Brankin, shaped the lives of his male inmates within his "honor system" at the British Columbia Boy's Industrial School from 1919 to 1934. He had supposedly abandoned harsh, traditional methods through a reward system to promote social reintegration. Brankin also relocated the industrial school away from urban Vancouver to rural Coquitlam and established a farm colony to provide agricultural training. In British Columbia, the industrial school was not just a juvenile work colony but also an official provincial school. Although formal schooling was provided it was always subservient to manual labor training. Brankin's emphasis on militarism, work routines, and behavior monitoring shaped the lives of the young boys under his honor system. He believed he could turn criminal boys into responsible Canadian citizens.⁹ Conflict with the school's teaching staff ultimately precipitated Brankin's demise. His homegrown philosophy of [End Page 42] child saving and citizenship was at odds with mental hygiene methods of dealing with problem youth by the 1930s.

WORK COLONIES FOR WAYWARD CHILDREN

Industrial schools as juvenile penal institutions for the moral reform of wayward children began in Great Britain, with parish workhouses utilizing enforced labor following the ideas of Jeremy Bentham. Wayward was one of the terms Victorians used to classify child criminals. Vagrant, pauper, beggar, and street urchin were also used to describe such children who were usually placed by the courts in adult gaols (jails) or workhouses.¹⁰ The 1854 Youthful Offenders Act incarcerated children age sixteen and under for up to two years until the 1857 Industrial Schools Act created certified industrial schools. By 1865 there were 136 industrial schools in England and Wales. They were operated by religious orders, usually Anglican, or independent boards. All used institutional managers and claimed to be motivated by Christian charity toward poor children.¹¹

Canada was influenced by Great Britain on how to deal with the problem of wayward urban children. The Halifax Industrial and Ragged School was founded in 1864 in Nova Scotia's capital city in order to deal with "street arabs" committing petty crimes. It was designed to imbue these wayward youths with "habits of industry." Other Canadian colonial territories such as New Brunswick housed their youthful offenders in the adult jail until an industrial school opened in 1895.¹² In post-Confederation Canada, the high numbers of child vagrants in Toronto united local charities, the school board, and philanthropist William Howland in founding the Minco Victoria Industrial School in 1877. By 1908, Ontario had four industrial schools housing a population of 413 child inmates.¹³ In 1892, the Canadian federal government amended criminal legislation to encourage provinces to construct juvenile institutions and stop using adult jails. The 1908 federal Juvenile Delinquents Act encouraged provinces to set up juvenile courts to sentence offenders to purpose built youth facilities for rehabilitation.¹⁴ Many provinces were already looking south to juvenile training schools in the United States. When Manitoba set up the Portage La Prairie Training School in 1910 it was modeled after the Minnesota Training School for Boys at Red Wing. Rooke and Schnell believe industrial schools were "a form of social inoculation" that acknowledged "the necessity of guidance and surveillance" to rehabilitate young offenders.¹⁵

Ideally, industrial schools were located outside cities, in rural areas for farming. Peter Carr Seixas describes the relocation of the New York Juvenile Asylum: [End Page 43] "Leaving behind the large buildings and crowded city streets, the institution men claimed that the cluster of small buildings in more rural settings would rehabilitate the urban young, by drawing them close to the restorative rhythms of nature, within a social structure less institutional."¹⁶ The "cottage colony" design fostered "family-style" groupings in a farm atmosphere. It was based upon social experiments at the Mettray Juvenile Penal Colony (1839) in France, the Red Hill Farm for Boys (1849) in England, and the Ohio Farm School for Boys (1858). American Progressives such as Homer Lane had pioneered physical farm labor for children at the Pennsylvania State Reformatory in 1901, as did George W. Hinckley at the Good Will Farm in Fairfield, Maine, from 1889 to 1903. Wayward youth required a mixture of "mental and manual" work, although the emphasis was more on the manual than the mental.¹⁷ Sangster has argued that formal schooling was purposely de-emphasized at industrial schools because of the supposed intellectual limitations of child offenders. North American juvenile authorities thought farming was an honest, practical career for restless boys. When Ontario set up the Bowmanville Boy's Training School in 1926, its farm work program was "an advanced step" to address the "wayward boy problem."¹⁸ David Brankin's relocation of the British Columbia Boy's Industrial School to rural Coquitlam in 1921 ensured it would be a cottage colony. Masculinity was developed within a system of patriotic routines such as drilling, marching, flag waving, sports like rugby, and of course physical, muscular work. Mark Moss describes this "education system as a method of producing solid citizens" and future soldiers.¹⁹

BRANKIN'S TRAINING AS A COURT MISSIONARY AND IMMIGRATION TO BRITISH COLUMBIA TO WORK IN JUVENILE JUSTICE

David Brankin was born on August 4, 1878, in Northern Ireland into a family of nine children. His father was an itinerant laborer and his mother a home weaver. Brankin was a working-class child in a large family and had few options after completing grammar school. He enlisted in the Royal Irish Rifles for two years and after being discharged, worked in Scotland. Brankin recalled that "about 1900 [he] went to London, England to take special training in social and allied welfare work" and over "the next ten years he spent in various parts of the British Isles engaged in this type of work." He married Mary Chatterton in Nottingham on October 8, 1905, eventually having two daughters. Brankin's training in London was with the Anglican church London Police Court Mission or LPCM. His strongly held Methodist Christian belief in saving the fallen apparently motivated him.²⁰ The history of the LPCM is well documented by [End Page 44] legal historian Sascha Auerbach. Under the 1907 Probation Offenders Act, police court missionaries were made de facto probation officers. Auerbach points out the police court mission "was clear in its support for boy's homes in the years surrounding the First World War" to foster "useful citizens of the empire." The LPCM-affiliated Padcroft Boy's Home of Yiewsley, Middlesex, claimed a street boy or "the raw material" could be transformed by "three months' training" into "the finished article" as a fully employed uniformed "footman to a cabinet minister." Corrective work training, sports, healthy Christian living (abstinence), patriotism, and military discipline could change wayward youths. As Moss has stated, it also masculinized boys into perfect soldier material. Auerbach notes that many from the Padcroft Boy's Home fought as volunteers in World War I and died on the battlefield.²¹

Brankin and his wife immigrated directly to Vancouver in 1910. He became a juvenile probation officer at the city's detention home, assisting Herbert Walker Collier, chief probation officer of the municipal juvenile court. Brankin worked with a Mr. Pamplin, and Mary Brankin served as house matron. According to Matters, the detention home under Collier was known for its disciplinarian approach. Collier said that he could "put my finger on the bad spot" of a youth as soon as he met them, then applied the strap "on the spot where it would do the most good."²² Brankin left the detention home in 1912 and in 1914 he enlisted in the 102nd Battalion of the Canadian Expeditionary Force. Returning to Vancouver in 1917, he was featured in a newspaper article about his war experience and the self-discipline of military service. Brankin was made president of the Children's Welfare Association of British Columbia in 1919, and by cultivating political connections, he was appointed superintendent of neglected children in 1920 and administered the provincial Mother's Pension Act fund until 1925. Due to his reputation as a progressive child saver, he secured the appointment of superintendent of the Boy's Industrial School in 1919.²³

SHAPING BOY'S LIVES THROUGH THE HONOR SYSTEM AND BUILDING THE FARM COLONY

In May 1921, an inspection visit to the boy's industrial school in Point Grey revealed a transformed institution. The military "drills on the parade ground," athletic displays, and a brass band concert impressed the visitors. The "school classes [were] held just a little longer" so educational provisions could be noted. It is clear that the industrial school was not a school for education but a training site for work and military drills. According to Moss, masculinizing a boy through military regimentation and physical activity was seen as the best way to create citizens. Formal schooling would be wasted on working-class boys [End Page 45] who needed physical training not education. The new provincial Boy's Industrial School, Coquitlam or "Biscoq" was built adjacent to Essondale, the provincial mental hospital, in rural Coquitlam. The new complex had three cottages, an administration block, and a kitchen/dining hall/laundry building. The cottages were meant to be family groupings but as Sutherland has observed, cottage facilities were in fact used for physical segregation.²⁴

The physical cottage plan was employed by Brankin to construct the social hierarchy of his honor system. Cottage One had thirty-nine beds and a private star-class dormitory for the most privileged boys. Cottage Two had fifty-two beds for younger boys who had to be "kept apart" from older boys in "other cottages." Cottage Three had one dormitory for "boys who had proven themselves worthy of a little better consideration" and a medical unit. In a 1921 description, Brankin set forth his system of ranks and privileges. Star Boys were the top rank of boy, as they were each paid thirty-five cents a week, ate at a special table, had a special smaller dormitory, had their own recreation room, played in the band, and wore three-striped uniforms with a star. Class A boys wore three-striped uniforms, had a smaller dormitory, special dining hall seating, were paid thirty cents a week, and received an extra dessert. Class B boys wore two striped uniforms, were paid twenty-five cents a week, had their own dining hall table, and slept in their own dormitory. Class C and D boys wore plain uniforms and had to earn extra "marks until they climbed to the higher classes." Data was constantly collected. For offenses, "boys are docked marks, money allowances or given extra duties." The honor system was all about "the making of useful, honorable citizens of the boys." Sangster states that most industrial schools "utilized an intricate system of rewards and punishment," while Sutherland writes that grouping "certain types of boys" led to violence.²⁵

Every waking minute of a boy's life at Biscoq was organized and monitored: assembly for flag raising was at 6 a.m. after washing/dressing, followed by morning prayers, breakfast, morning parade, off to school or work, mid-day meal followed by play time, back to work or school, afternoon recreation, evening meal, flag lowering, evening prayers, and finally bed. Saturday morning was for bathing, while Sunday was for church services and concerts. Strapping was reserved for the "deliberate refusal to comply with orders, running away, indecent conduct or damaging property." Mr. Brankin's "system" created "a small, organized world." The "Biscoq Daily Programme" was laid out in detail in all of Brankin's annual reports.²⁶ Gradually the boys conformed:

A merit basis was built up, with merit marks, weekly money bonuses, stripes and stars. For exceptional and continued merit, a boy was given a bedroom by himself, or was allowed to eat with the officials or was given supervision [End Page 46] over other boys. The aim was to fit the boy for the environment in which he would have to move after he left school. In line with this aim, the boys were given numerous tastes of freedom.²⁷

Speaking at a 1921 child welfare conference, Brankin praised his honor system to the delegates.²⁸

In 1930 Herbert Pearson, the vicar of Christ Church, Surrey, wrote to Brankin after his Biscoq tour commenting "one cannot be but impressed with the site" as well as the "plan of laying out the buildings and grounds." It did not look like a penal colony but "a large well-kept private estate."²⁹ However, only through dictatorial methods could Brankin have accomplished this level of construction. He steadily expanded the physical plant, with workshops for carpentry, plumbing, electrical, blacksmithing, tailoring, shoemaking, cement/stone work, and an automotive garage. All shops were staffed with qualified instructors in various trades. A two-division school building and an auditorium/gymnasium with a lending library were added. The provincial education branch supplied two teachers, primary and intermediate. Playing fields for sports such as baseball, soccer, and rugby-football were constructed. A swimming tank was built in 1925. The farming operation included a dairy cow/horse barn, piggery, bull pens, and hay silo. Land was cleared for hay crops, vegetable gardens, fruit orchards, pastureland, and extensive flower gardens planted at the behest of Mrs. Brankin. A large poultry building for egg production and poultry rearing made a net profit of $4,222.65 in 1930.³⁰

The boys were free labor for the entire operation of Biscoq; exploitation was justified as vocational work training. In the poultry facility, the boys collected eggs, packed them for shipping, killed and dressed birds, and even built the shipping crates. E. Keith of the engineering department commented about a 1926 plumbing project: "five hundred dollars would not cover the work if it had been done by outside help."³¹ Most building construction was contracted out to building firms but boys did much of the finishing work. Boys built furniture, benches, bookcases, planter boxes, cleared land for playing fields, and even built the goal posts on the playing fields. Work accidents went largely unrecorded in official records; however, in 1930 a boy was buried alive while digging a trench.³²

The admission of older boys after 1922 presented Brankin with numerous challenges. The decision to raise the age for confinement in the industrial school from sixteen to eighteen in 1922 increased the population of Biscoq and also provided older boys, who had greater physical ability to do heavier work. Population data shows a steady increase: 89 boys in 1922; 118 boys in 1923; 127 boys in 1924; 135 boys in 1925; 132 boys in 1926; 130 boys in 1927; 149 boys in 1928; 151 [End Page 47] boys in 1929; 129 boys in 1930; 137 boys in 1931, 152 boys in 1932; 192 boys in 1933; and dropping to 75 boys in 1934 after Brankin's departure. A survey of the offenses the boys committed to be placed in Biscoq for 1923, 1928, 1929, 1931, and 1932 shows overwhelmingly that property theft, breaking and entering, incorrigible behavior, public indecency, and assaults dominated convictions. With the inclusion of "more mature boys," some sexual offences were noted.³³ As in all the year-end reports, the composition of Biscoq's inmate population was defined by parental origin. In 1924 it was dominated by "Canadian," "English-Canadian," and "French-Canadian." "Newfoundlander" was a separate identity, as it was still a British colony. All Anglo-British inmates were classified as "English," "Scotch," "Irish," and "Welsh." Any inmate form the United States was "American." Someone from China was "Chinese" and from Japan was "Japanese." Indigenous people were defined in a derogatory manner as "Indians" along with terms for racial admixture as "Half-breed," "Quarter-breed," and "Three-quarter-breed." Europeans were described by ethnicity, such as "Polish," "Serbian," "Hungarian," "Russian," "Austrian," "Italian," "Norwegian," and "Swedish."

There was no discernible data to indicate that Biscoq was populated by boys from working-class/laboring families who ran afoul of the law. Specific geographic places of apprehension were noted in the annual records; many boys came from the poorer neighborhoods of urban Vancouver. Others boys came from rural families who worked in farming, ranching, mining, forestry, and fishing. The Biscoq inmate population mirrored Canada at the time which was dominated by Anglo-British, French Canadians, continental Europeans, Asian, and Indigenous peoples.³⁴ Segregation was reserved for infectious inmates like those with tuberculosis; they were confined to jail cells as opposed to quarantining in the medical unit.

EDUCATION AND DAILY LIFE AT BISCOQ

Brankin believed like his American progressive counterparts Lane and Hinckley that physical labor on the land was innately rehabilitative.³⁵ Education had to be practical, as learning routine work tasks was seen as a way to change wayward children. Formal education in classrooms was only needed to a level of basic proficiency in numeracy and literacy. Sutherland states that "industrial schools in Canada found it very difficult to maintain themselves as institutions whose prime purpose was education."³⁶ Brankin admitted that when boys arrived at Biscoq "they have little love for work." Through his honor system, they soon "outlived their former habits and began to cultivate and train both mind and body and become respectful citizens of our land." At the end of Grade 8, Brankin had the teacher "pass them out" and go to full-time work. A very small [End Page 48] minority went on to high school. In 1923 he removed fourteen boys from school; four went to the shoe shop, five to the farm, one to the poultry barn, one to the blacksmith, one to carpentry, and two to the work gang.

The Biscoq school house had become a revolving door for teaching staff. The annual reports revealed that the names of both the primary and intermediate teachers changed frequently. In 1927, primary teacher Winnifred Wells was grateful her hands-on nature study program resulted in a better "moral tone" among her pupils. Intermediate teacher Jean Murtie noted that most of her pupils were "at least two grades over age," with poor to nonexistent reading and mathematics skills. In 1931, the new primary teacher, Miss Ayra Peck, and new intermediate teacher, Mr. E. W. Blagburn, found all the boys highly distracted, with poor reading as well as concentration skills. Miss Peck noted her pupils needed "a good deal of individual teaching" but were much better with "hand work." Mr. Blagburn "presented his lessons in a forceful manner" that demanded attention because of the "restless nature of the pupils." As all the students were boys, hyperkinetic syndrome might have been prevalent. In 1931 there were 137 pupils registered; 115 in Grades 1–8, nine in high school, and thirteen special class students.³⁷ Given the lack of teaching resources provided by Brankin to the two teachers, the school inspector was surprised things were running so smoothly. Brankin took no interest in school conditions, only intervening when a pupil needed discipline as he believed they were there to do physical labor.

Brankin's annual reports tried to assure government officials the inmates were continuously occupied and never idle. They also made it clear that all the waking hours of the boys' lives were regimented into routines that never varied. Boys were kept on a continuously monitored schedule of meal times, morning and evening rituals (flag ceremonies, assemblies, daily Christian prayers), weekday school classes, work assignments, twice weekly band practices, scheduled Saturday bathing, Sunday clothing/bed inspections, Sunday afternoon Christian services, and organized recreation/leisure activities. Biscoq's boy inmates were thoroughly institutionalized.³⁸ Brankin believed the brass band program was "one of the main essentials in the reclamation of child delinquents," but the band teacher, Mr. Rushton, complained that boys frequently left. Brass bands were a feature of many industrial schools.³⁹ Organized sports was not seen by Brankin as an enjoyable activity for boys, but training for following rules. The healthy development of the boys' bodies through work and sports was in stark contrast to an outbreak of gonorrhea among inmates, to be discussed later, which embarrassed Brankin as a failure of his honor system. Biscoq teams played baseball, basketball, soccer, and rugby-football with [End Page 49] outside church, public school, and amateur teams.⁴⁰ Even the boys' reading material from the Biscoq library was mandated by Brankin. With a collection of 590 books in 1931, only 124 books were "self-borrowed" by boys while over 300 books were "issued" to them as mandatory reading.⁴¹

In every annual report Brankin published a list of twelve values statements entitled "Some Things We Emphasize at Biscoq." These twelve values are summarized as follows:

(1) Authority had to be obeyed at all times. (2) Patriotism was demanded to King and flag. (3) Homage to God the creator. (4) Being chaste fosters a healthy body. (5) All work is honorable. (6) Other people's property is scared. (7) Honesty is essential. (8) Law breaking is not clever or honorable. (9) Canada is a moral nation and all citizens must strive to live up to its ideals. (10) Citizens play a clean game even if they don't win. (11) Individual improvement comes from the inside and works outward. (12) Each person is good for something.

The local press reported about the "great work in citizen-making" that was occurring at Biscoq.⁴² Brankin staged many open houses, often inviting the press to report his good work with wayward youth. In 1932 Brankin investigated sixty-two former inmates or "old boys" over a ten-year period (1921–1931) living in the Okanagan and Kootenay regions. His findings indicated that only nine "old boys" were still having difficulties with authorities, while fifty-three had "not been in any further trouble," displaying the "true Biscoq spirit."⁴³ This was proof that his honor system created self-supporting adult citizens. On the surface it all seemed socially progressive; however, the truth about the kind of lives boys led at Biscoq was very different.

ESCAPEES, CORPORAL PUNISHMENT, AND STAFF CONFLICT

Escapee rates at Biscoq were consistently high; Brankin blamed "the close proximity of the bush and undergrowth" for the ease of boys fleeing. He never considered that his rigid, disciplinarian methods were at fault. On average, for the years 1924 to 1933, about twenty-one boys escaped per year, with sixteen recaptured and five boys remaining at large.⁴⁴ In 1933 after apprehension a boy was given "a sound thrashing, two dozen strokes of the strap on his bare buttocks" which drew blood, according to C. L. Hughes, a staff witness. Following punishment the boy was locked up in the jail cells. Punishment was administered by Brankin or his deputy, assistant superintendent C. E. Clayton. In 1931, a male attendant was sent to pick up three escapees from the Abbotsford jail. The Biscoq attendant struck the boys on their faces, shocking the on-duty constable, who then refused to release them to the attendant's custody. One boy [End Page 50] who escaped in 1926 died when he tried unsuccessfully to jump on a moving railway boxcar while being pursued.⁴⁵ Records were kept of individual punishments administered by Brankin and his deputy, but these documents could not be located in the provincial archives. Instances of inmate punishment were gleaned from the 1934 Royal Commission of Inquiry report into Biscoq and in a 1940 University of British Columbia masters of social work thesis.

Kenneth William Thomas Wright, in his 1940 master's thesis about juvenile delinquency in British Columbia, was blunt about Brankin's brutality. Brankin often "resorted to the paddle excessively," which was "in direct contrast with his theory." "Mr. Brankin really thought he was moulding the boys into useful citizens" by severely punishing them. One "boy was strapped more than eighty times across the bare buttocks—sufficient to draw blood," according to Wright in order "to drive the criminal tendencies out by force." The case record files are full of "four strokes across the buttocks" and "severely strapped" for rule breaking. Wright must have had access to the records of individual punishments at Biscoq in the late 1930s. Those records have not survived to the present.⁴⁶ Staff submitted letters to the commission of inquiry; they stated Brankin and his wife routinely slapped boys who talked back to them. Brankin humiliated boys with "foolish and condescending remarks." One staff member declared that to Brankin, "bullying is a personal hobby of his." Mr. Clayton violently punished disobedient Doukhobor boys from the Kootenay district who were placed in Biscoq during the 1930s. The press claimed that Brankin gave "gentle treatment" to these "little rebels," but in reality staff members said he acted "extremely harsh" towards the Doukhobors. Mr. Clayton dragged one Doukhobor boy on the bare ground on his face up a hill when he refused to work.⁴⁷

The regular use of physical punishment indicates that Brankin failed to understand how his honor system could not change all the boys in his charge. His reaction to any infractions was to swiftly administer corporal punishment, similar to military discipline. Brankin was troubled by many of the boys' behaviors, especially anything connected to their sexuality. There were several outbreaks of gonorrhea between 1926 and 1932. In 1931, eight boys were removed to hospital for treatment; Brankin blamed a "perverted knowledge of sex" learned from their "criminalistics" and "careless ways." He had the Biscoq doctor perform routine circumcisions, supposedly to curb excessive self-stimulation. In 1934 Brankin locked up a boy with gonorrhea for two weeks before finally sending him to hospital after a staff member complained to the Biscoq doctor. However, when a male staff sexually abused several boys, Brankin simply dismissed him and cautioned the boys concerned not to talk to the police.⁴⁸ Brankin wanted no blemishes on his exemplary record and honor system. [End Page 51]

The 1934 Royal Commission revealed a divide among the staff of Biscoq about Brankin's administration. The inquiry had been ordered after several Biscoq staff had sent letters of complaint to the provincial secretary, George M. Weir. Attorney general Eric Pepler was joined by University of British Columbia sociology professor Coral Topping to lead the "official investigation." Brankin had been the subject of an investigation in November 1929 but was cleared of wrongdoing when letters appeared in the Vancouver press from "old boys" supporting him. The letters claimed Brankin "always gives a square deal" and "never punishes a boy unless he is sure he is the culprit."⁴⁹ However, this time the letters were coming from disgruntled Biscoq staff, and Brankin could not use his "old boys" to lobby support in the press.

There was witness testimony that jail cells were used regularly to punish boys even after physical punishment was administered. Brankin was accused of slapping boys, humiliating staff in front of boys, constantly losing his temper, covering up sexual abuse, paying boys to spy on staff, harassing staff over sick time, restricting boys' bathroom breaks to the point they soiled themselves, and denying boys medical treatment. The examples of a boy's burst appendix as well as the jailed boy's 1931 gonorrhea infection were cited by staff members as evidence of medical neglect. The tailoring instructor said of Brankin, "you would think he was a crazy man," and the farm supervisor said bluntly that he "antagonized most members of staff." The two teachers, Peck and Blagburn, accused Brankin of spiteful behavior when they complained about their classroom conditions, and they joined with fellow staff in writing letters. The night watchman claimed bullying staff was Brankin's "personal hobby." Brankin's reaction after reading the complaint letters was to declare that the staff who wrote them "would be dismissed." He wrote a rambling letter to the inquiry defending his paramilitary style of discipline at Biscoq. Mr. Clayton had only seven complaints filed against him; most of the staff said they had no problems with him.⁵⁰ The 1934 Royal Commission offered the Brankins retirement with a pension and Mr. Clayton was to be transferred to another provincial institution. No mention was made of the physical harm done to the boys at Biscoq, and the sexual abuse incident was never addressed. Vancouver school principal F. C. Boyes was to be appointed superintendent as he had a "better understanding" of how to deal with problem boys.⁵¹

CONCLUSION

Pepler and Topping were very clear in their 1934 inquiry summary about Brankin's honor system: "His policies concerning vocational training, character development, and rehabilitation are found to be out of line with the best [End Page 52] contemporary policies in Industrial Schools." They had solicited evidence from other industrial schools across Canada as well as the United States and came to the conclusion that Brankin's practices were old fashioned. Pepler and Topping did not disagree with the general use of corporal punishment; they did have a problem with Brankin's excessive use of it. This was not what his honor system had promised. They did acknowledge, though, that he "deserves the greatest credit for the splendid physical appearance of the school today."⁵² Hatch and Griffiths believe Brankin's demise was brought on by "his paramilitary style and lack of formal training." Principal Boyes, Brankin's successor, was a professional educator from a school system that embraced mental hygiene and the press claimed he was a "trained psychologist."⁵³ This case study has not only documented the harsh conditions that inmates endured at the British Columbia Boy's Industrial School during the 1920s and early 1930s under Brankin but it also explained how a forced change of leadership at the institution reflected the growing influence of psychology and mental hygiene in remaking the facility into a school for the social rehabilitation of youth. How Boyes reshaped the industrial school, utilizing mental hygiene principles, would warrant a separate study, but as early as 1922 an attempt was made to have Biscoq placed under the psychiatric medical direction of the Essondale mental hospital. As a result of Brankin's political lobbying, the effort failed.⁵⁴

However, the most serious problem Brankin faced was that he had simply lost control of the institution. Pepler and Topping cited his inability "to preserve discipline and to maintain that spirit of harmony which should prevail between administration and staff," as the staff had become frustrated with his autocratic methods and his distrust of many of them. Brankin's management style clearly alienated some of the Biscoq staff; he spied on them with a telescope from his office. He severely disciplined staff if boys escaped under their care, telling the cook in 1933 that he should "get out" of the front gate for letting three boys run away.⁵⁵ The staff were concerned the institution was at risk of deteriorating due to Brankin's vindictive behavior toward them and increasing use of violence against inmates. He should not have been surprised when disaffected staff members organized a mass letter-writing campaign in December 1933 to the provincial secretary, resulting in a formal inquiry.

Through this detailed case study of the British Columbia Boy's Industrial School and the actual workings of Brankin's honor system, we can conclude he rigidly demanded every boy totally submit themselves to authority and relied excessively on the child-saving philanthropy of Benthamism. Paul W. Bennett writes that industrial schools were hamstrung by the "strong influence of Jeremy Bentham's educational ideas" concerning enforced work routines.⁵⁶ The [End Page 53] educational role of the industrial schools, for both boys and girls, was marginalized in favor of the social utility of training children for work. It also, by design, prepared these children for the subservient social roles they would assume once released from the industrial school. Teachers trying to educate these children were troubled by their lack of success and the removal of older students from the classroom for full-time work. The two Biscoq teachers were dismayed that their students were simply, as Paul Willis put it in his classic essay on class reproduction through education, "learning to labour."⁵⁷

In Brankin's mind, the military discipline and social ranking in a hierarchical pecking order was the only effective method of child saving. He was still resentful years after his forced "retirement" and in a 1936 open letter to the press, he criticized the "theories and experiments" being carried on at Biscoq. In his post-retirement career, Brankin became a Surrey school trustee, school board chairman, and head of the British Columbia School Trustees Association.⁵⁸ Brankin's death notice in 1961 made no reference to him being superintendent of Biscoq or his early career in juvenile justice. The only physical reminder today of Brankin is an elementary school in Surrey named after him.⁵⁹ The deleterious effect Brankin had on the lives of the boys in his care at the British Columbia Boy's Industrial School has been long forgotten, along with the difficult lives all such marginalized children were forced to endure in North American industrial schools during the twentieth century.