A Daily Mail newspaper article from 4th March 1961 states the following:
(Image of article can be found here)
A committee of boys of the Upper Fifth met in a specially allocated classroom a few yards from the headmaster's study yesterday.
And after a ten-minute meeting they voted to end the “angry silence” that spread through the school over the past two days.
The boys of Bacup and Rawtenstall, Lancashire, Grammar School started their “silence” - a ban on the singing of the assembly hymn - in protest against the withdrawal of privileges after five 1s. 8d. electric bulbs were smashed.
But yesterday they decided to end the silence after 16-year-old Ian Rayner had told them: “The Head is right. I think we should accept his terms and call it off.”
A few minutes later, greying Mr William Copley, who has been 22 years at the school on the edge of the moors, was invited to the meeting.
He head the verdict. Then told them: “The privilege of freedom of movement in school will be restored from Monday.”
The trouble started early this week when the bulbs were taken from the basement cloakroom and broken. Mr Copley started inquiries to find the culprit.
He did not succeed. So he withdrew the privilege of freedom of use of the school buildings.
Ian Rayner told me: “Mr Copley narrowed it down to the Upper Fifth C and D. We had a meeting in the playground on Wednesday, and I suggested that I would not sing at assembly and the others said they would follow suit. It spread a but after that. When the time came round to sing the hymn we just kept silent. It was the same this morning. Then a deputation talked with Mr Copley and he said he would be satisfied if we accepted collective responsibility and paid for the bulbs.”
“We have been thinking it over and we think he is right. In fact, I would have done just the same thing if I had been in his position.”
Some of the boys also refused to answer masters' questions, and one class for a time kept their hands on their heads.
A few minutes after he had left the meeting of the Upper Fifth in a classroom a few yards away from his study - which he had allocated for the deliberations - Mr Copley told me: “I prefer to let the boys work out such things for themselves. I believe in giving them as much responsibility as possible.”
“The breaking of the bulbs was a breach of that responsibility and therefore, it was punished accordingly.”
But like most angry demonstrations, there were those taking part who did not quite know what the facts were. A small boy from the second form told me: “I joined in because someone said the withdrawal of privileges included games and physical education. I like P.E.”