He was born in 1900, I don't know that the British Royal Navy was much different. When I was in school in 1976 some pupils went on an Army run outward bound course, the school "hard case" set his lip up to one of the instructors and got the quickest, hardest, good hiding he ever had, in front of the others. Most of my friends after leaving school went into apprenticeships in BSC or ICI, they all had a tale to tell about an lippy apprentice being given a beating. Many of the rules concerning press gangs and corporal punishment in the Royal Navy havnt been used for a long time but have never been formally withdrawn.
The last sailor hanged from a RN ship was in 1860, flogging was not outlawed until 1881.