 All forms of corporal punishment were banned in state schools in the UK in 1987.A ban in private schools followed in England and Wales (1999), Scotland (2000), and Northern Ireland (2003).Ishamel, a fictional character in Herman Melville's Moby-Dick, recalled, in chapter four of the novel, begging his stepmother for the favor of receiving from her "a good slippering" for his misbehaviour.