Circumcision for boarding school or public school in the UK?

I went to boarding school from the 1970s and during my first medical at the age of 7, the doctor recommended I should be circumcised. After a second opinion was sought by my mother, it wasn’t done. Does anyone know if, say before the 1980s, some public schools and boarding schools were promoting or recommending circumcision for boys at their school?

I've not experienced it personally, but as the same generation as you, and at an independent school from 12 in the 1980s, I did notice a higher proportion of boys who had been circumcised for non-religious reasons. Very small sample obviously, but I now suspect that there could have been a few 'prep school' boys who had been circumcised because their school 'recommended' it.

Quite probably a 'class' thing I guess - circumcision among nobility and royalty well known as being routine back then and now, so some deluded parents thought it was 'right'. Sad and wrong 😢

Well done to your mother for resisting the 'peer pressure'!

I was at school in the 70's and also had my first school medical at 7.

I did have severe phimosis at the time but there did seem to be a general trend among the school doctors to recommend circumcision if the foreskin showed any sign of tightness during the examination .

During my medical the doctor said I definitely needed to be cut and a follow up meeting was arranged at my GP within a few days.

When I visited the GP I was expecting a hospital appointment to be arranged but to my surprise the GP said to wait a bit longer and try stretching, which did eventually work.

I bet quite a few guys lost their foreskins unnecessarily as a result of those school medicals.

I do not have first-hand knowledge, but there have been numerous reports of the practice being quite common across many private schools in the UK from the 1930s to the 1970s. As far as I know, the timing for performing the procedure varied. Some schools required boys to start at the school already circumcised, so their parents had to arrange for the procedure to be performed by a private physician. Other schools arranged for boys to be circumcised after they were admitted. Oftentimes, parents were informed that the procedure would be performed after their child was admitted, but there were occasions when parents were surprised to learn that their son had the procedure performed when he returned home for Christmas holidays.

Prophylaxis and hygiene were the most common reasons. Because it was often difficult to supervise a large group of boys retracting the foreskin when bathing or urinating, most schools thought that circumcising everyone upon admission was the easier task. Reducing masturbation was another reason. The result was often as expected because Vaseline wasn't marketed as a masturbatory aid, and KY was often prescribed for vaginal dryness rather than male masturbation.

There were also accounts of mass circumcisions and tonsillectomies performed on orphan boys before they were sent by the Crown to colonial territories, particularly in Australia and Canada. Before male orphans were shipped overseas, English doctors made sure to remove the boys' foreskins and tonsils for prophylactic reasons. Years later, men who arrived there when they were boys revealed that circumcisions and tonsillectomies were mandatory for boys who were sent by the Crown overseas.

I don’t see the foreskin as vital or particularly beneficial—certainly not something that must be preserved at all costs when it’s clearly too tight. Unlike the tonsils or appendix, the foreskin doesn’t serve a critical function. If it’s causing hygiene issues due to tightness, removing it is a straightforward solution with no significant consequences.

Of course, if parents choose to wait and see if the condition improves over time, that’s a reasonable approach too. However, this means subjecting the child to ongoing discomfort and inconvenience, which may not be necessary.

@kulemh Mmmh. Some circumcised men (it probably depends on how it was done, how tight the result is, position of the scar…) experience discomfort or even minor injuries during masturbation or intercourse, because of fragile scars and exposure of parts that normally should not be exposed to friction. It of course depends on whether you consider this significant.

Interesting. I graduated from an American boarding school in the early 70’s, and the subject was never mentioned.

Interesting. I graduated from an American boarding school in the early 70’s, and the subject was never mentioned.

@JJM It was maybe not necessary to mention this subject because most boys were probably circumcised. Or were you not circumcised and and no one saw it or talked to you about it?

I think I read in Prince Harry's memoir, Spare, that in boarding school boys joked about "roundheads" (circumcised boys, such as the prince and his brother, the current heir apparent) and "cavaliers" (uncircumcised boys). This means that circumcision in the British upper classes was still quite a thing when they were born.

I don't know about the UK specifically but I think that circumcision became so popular in other parts of the world like the US, Australia/ NZ because it was the parents 'showing off' that they had their little boy in a hospital rather than a home birth. It was thought that only the more well off families could have a hospital birth. So, it would not surprise me that private school boys in the UK were more likely to be cut because their parents thought similar things about what the procedure says about their social class.

Whether the school thought that forcing/ preferring cut boys protected their image of high society, maybe.

Interesting thread! I never saw an uncircumcised student during my time at a private school as it was the custom for my age cohort. However, I am intrigued by comments that some schools insisted on it.

I went to pretty well know British boarding school in 90s. I am not circumcised and it was never brought up as an issue. As for other boys, it was a mix of 'cut' and 'not cut' as it was referred. I cannot speak authoritatively, I did not speak with all 'cut' but I think all were circumcised shortly after birth. There were cases, among older boys, of various forms of irritations due to excessive masturbation or even few cases of infection caused by inserting objects into urethra, but I have never heard about anything caused by poor hygiene because of having foreskin. And there were some boys who had to be forced into showers... Now, when I think about it, it surprises me how some kind of info, like someone having to see nurse because they wanked too much and their penis got swollen or any other unusual or embarrassing thing, would spread almost instantly and would be remembered 'for ever'.

@gauguin Were you required to have medical examinations at school, as that was how the subject of me possibly needing circumcising came up?

Jacana you might be correct in it being an upper class thing in Britain. In the 1950s and after the national health wouldn't pay for it (under normal conditions). So having enough money to pay for it would be a discouragement for many.

I was an ordinary UK state school boy. I can't remember seeing a cut cock during my time at school, and it was never mentioned at school medicals.

@chamed In the absence of insurance paying for such surgeries, circumcision for such "motives" as curbing masturbation was likely restricted to wealthy families who adhered to a "narrow way" vision of morality.

such "motives" as curbing masturbation

Maybe, @Jacana. This is a point you have made several times. However while I am not disagreeing with you, I do think that @Mrssnipgirl may be onto something.

parents 'showing off' that they had their little boy in a hospital rather than a home birth

…about what the procedure says about their social class

I’ve read that circumcision was used as a way of curbing masturbation, but this was more a reason for it to be carried out until the early 20th century. I suppose the practice could have continued in boarding and private schools. Masturbation was frowned upon at my school, but I imagine that would be normal.

@NurseSammy Yes, I'm thinking of people such as Keynes (the economist), who was circumcised, along with his brother, when he was a child (elementary school aged, I think) apparently for that reason (prevention / curation of onanism).

I don't think circumcision happened at birth routinely in the UK even for hospital birth. It happened later. But your idea of exceptionalism on the part of the upper classes seems to fit. I read that the royal family had all boys circumcised (including Harry and William) because of this Victorian tradition and some kind of idea that this placed the family as heirs of the ancient kings of Israel.

I was circumsied when i was born... now wish i wasn't as guys with uncut are much more interesting.

plus id say 50/50 here at boarding school

@Examined The recommendation to parents (obviously, parents wealthy enough to be able to pay for gratuitous surgery) to circumcise boys regarding masturbation lasted I think up to WWII, or a bit afterwards (1950s). Recall that this was a time when the UK still sentenced men for being gay. Then mentalities were changing about sexuality.

I’ve read about how certain UK boarding schools and public schools used to have a mandatory circumcision policy. I believe it’s died out now although may still be popular with certain parents/pupils.

The reasons or justifications mentioned in this thread already are likely valid. Before the NHS was launched in 1948, doctors had to be paid by patients they treated. It may well be that upper and middle classes that could afford it would have their baby sons circumcised to prevent (more expensive) procedures later. Over time, that would become an indicator of social standing, i.e. the ‘done thing’.

One boarding school pupil’s account I saw said that the reason for the policy at his school was uniformity and hygiene. If all the boys were the same (below the belt) then there wouldn’t be any teasing or exclusion etc for being different. This seemed a bit drastic but when backed up by hygiene and making life easier for matron at bath time it appeared to be readily accepted by the families that sent their boys there.

One boarding school pupil’s account I saw said that the reason for the policy at his school was uniformity and hygiene. If all the boys were the same (below the belt) then there wouldn’t be any teasing or exclusion etc for being different. This seemed a bit drastic but when backed up by hygiene and making life easier for matron at bath time it appeared to be readily accepted by the families that sent their boys there.

This must have been another aspect that is not often written about in memoirs about the horrid and terrible time so many young upper class British lads experienced in a boarding school.

As if the physical punishments, swats, spankings, paddling, cold showers, unwanted advances from staff and higher up students and a boring curriculum weren't enough to make life hell for youngsters at these places. And learning how to keep a stiff upper lip throughout it all.

I was at boarding school in thr 1960s. I hit puberty early. Somehow Matron noticed that my foreskin wasn't retracting properly and it was arranged for me to be circumcised. To this day I am so grateful for her care.

@Thursdays_child She wrote to your parents suggesting this surgery?

I don't know about the UK specifically but I think that circumcision became so popular in other parts of the world like the US, Australia/ NZ because it was the parents 'showing off' that they had their little boy in a hospital rather than a home birth. It was thought that only the more well off families could have a hospital birth.

The widespread adoption of male circumcision in the United States began with circumcision policies implemented in the US military. Army and Navy physicians believed that the medical evidence available at the time was sufficient to justify uniform policies requiring draftees and servicemen to undergo the procedure. Although circumcision remained the standard treatment for phimosis, military surgeons also began routinely circumcising draftees and servicemen for health and hygienic reasons. They believed that circumcised men were less likely to contract syphilis or gonorrhea while off duty, and less likely to develop balanitis or posthitis when deployed to regions where maintaining proper personal hygiene was difficult.

Most Army and Navy surgeons used a forceps-guided method in which the foreskin was first drawn forward, clamped with forceps, and then excised. Many men feared the procedure because of the pain often associated with it, due to inadequate analgesia. However, following the invention of Novocain and its adoption for minor surgical procedures, many tolerated the procedure quite well, especially when it was preceded by an intravenous morphine injection to reduce anxiety. Preoperative preparation remained painful though, as surgeons continued to use carbolic acid or mercuric iodide to disinfect the glans. One report described a Navy surgeon who circumcised 40 servicemen in a single day, operating on groups of four at a time because the infirmary contained four operating tables and 40 beds. He could have performed even more procedures had additional facilities been available.

Regardless of the advances in analgesia and anesthesia, many men remembered their circumcisions as traumatic experiences. As a result, some requested that physicians circumcise their sons early in life in order to spare them the ordeal of undergoing the procedure after being drafted. The invention of the Gomco clamp in the mid-1930s was, in part, a response to the growing demand among American fathers to have their sons circumcised. The device gained popularity not only in the United States but also in Canada and Australia, as it was marketed to hospitals and private physicians as a bloodless circumcision instrument. It remains one of the preferred methods of circumcision today.