Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a thrashing, a beating.

1830		Exeter Flying Post 7 Jan. 4/4: Miss Sally Bond flew into a tearing passion, and vowed that every one of the urchins should have a right good towelling if they did not instantly allow her to depart.
1839		Crim.-Con. Gaz. 5 Jan. 7/3: Den him raise ebony cane and gib Massa Lambton such towelling him neber hab afore.
1859, 1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor I 421/1: I got a towelling, but it did not do me much good.
1870		Western Times 30 Nov. 4/2: A few strokes of a birchen rod off-hand being infinitely more effective [...] These two scoundrels [...] broke the heads of half the village [...] and yet got no ‘towelling’.
1873		Sl. Dict. 328: Towelling a rubbing down with an oaken towel, a beating.
1880		R. Rowe Picked Up in the Streets 224: What we does when we ketches ’em priggin’ is to give ’em a towellin’.
2019		P. Temple ‘High Art’ in The Red Hand 47: ‘We gave the Spice Girls [i.e. a football club] from Sydney a bloody good towelling’.