HELPED TO THRASH A KING

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 62, 6 December 1930, Page 27

HELPED TO THRASH A KING

“Fusee,” the Man Boys Loved and Feared

Memories —some of them painful—will be stirred in all Old Etonians throughout the w’orld by the news of the death recently of Mr. William Hall, more familiarly known as “Fusee,” who as school messenger at Eton College for .forty-five years helped to thrash more famous people than any other known assistant at the “birching block.”'. : . He died at his house ,in Slough at the age of seventy-four, a year after his retirement from the service. His nickname of "Fusee” is attributed to hi sandy-red hair, and ruddy complexion when he v/as appointed to the post in 1884, after having passed through the Zulu and Boer wars and the Egyptian campaign of 1882. , ' One crowned head (the King of Siam), many princes, dukes, earls, Cabinet Ministers, judges, soldiers, and other celebrities remember him with mixed feelings. The fame that came to these people left him unmoved. ,

“The rod never spoiled the child at Eton,” he used to say. “If they got into mischief they were punished and took it without a whimper.” But he would never divulge what passed behind the scenes of the birch-ing-room. Potential bishops may have used bad language, and future field marshals squirmed, but “Fusee” never told.

“An Eton birch is a thing to be proud of,” he wrote in the “Sunday Express,” when he celebrated .his seventy-first birthday. Of the Bishop of St. Albans he said :—

“I never remember his actually getting the birch, but he deserved it often enough. He was a very big lad, and always up to some prank or other.” “Fusee” also related how, during a visit by the King and Queen with Lord Rosebery, soon after Prince Henry had left, the Queen, handling the birch said, “Surely they do not beat the boys with this. /I hope Henry never needed it.” She .'was assured that Prince Henry escaped it.