Death of William Gibbs

William Arthur Gibbs (1865-1877) was a schoolboy at Christ's Hospital school in Sussex, England. As a kid, he was bullied and beaten by other kids at the school. It came to a head when he ran away from school one day, and, as is usual such cases, had been flogged. He ran away again to avoid the bullying of the monitor Copeland, but was brought back to the school, and was there shut up in a room by himself to await his punishment, and that punishment he knew would be another flogging, to be followed by further bullying. He committed suicide by hanging on 4 May 1877 at age 12. His death caused an outcry and the government subsequently held an official inquiry.