Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a cudgel; usu. as rub-down or rubbing-down with..., a beating.

1705–07		N. Ward Hudibras Redivivus I:7 25: Attended by a Rogue, design’d / To guard and vindicate his Jewel / With Mutton Fist and Oaken Towel.
1714		J. Gay Shepherd’s Week 1st Pastoral 10: Forbear, contending Louts, give o’er your Strains, An Oaken Staff each merits for his Pains.
1729		Derby Mercury 17 Apr. 2/1: [He] saw something black, which put him in a dreadful Panic; however, recovering himself, he gave it so stout a Blow with an Oaken Towel [...] that he fell’d it at his feet.
1734		C. Johnson Hist. of Highwaymen &c 352: With a good oaken Plant he had in his Hand, [he] gave the Waterman such a shrew’d Blow under the Ear.
1741		London Eve. Post 17 Oct. n.p.: At which his men being exasperated began to exercise their oaken towels.
1742		‘Hercules Vinegar’ The Cudgel or Crab-tree Lecture 9: He need not want A Crab-tree Cudgel, or an Oaken Plant: Tough answers [...] fit To tame the wildness of ill-natur’d Wit.
1748		Smollett Roderick Random (1979) 9: I shall rub you down with an oaken towel, my boy.
1756		W. Toldervy Hist. of the Two Orphans III 149: Copper [...] happening to hear, immediately seized his oaken towel and fell upon them.
c.1760		Horse and away to St. James’s Park 1: Raising his oaken plant and beating it down again with some earnestness.
1769		Kentish Gaz. 12 July 2/1: An oaken towel would furnish a more proper argument against the insolence.
1771		Smollett Humphrey Clinker (1925) I 142: But i’fackins, Mr. Clinker wa’n’t long in his debt – with a good oaken sapling he dusted his doublet, for all his golden cheese toaster.
1772		Bridges Burlesque Homer (3rd edn) 242: Soon he ply’d his oaken towels, / And gave ’em all the gripes i’th’ bowels.
1781		Northhampton Mercury 7 May 3/2: The young son of Neptune, grasoping his oaken towel, swore he would knock down any man who offered to stop him.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Towel, An oaken towel, a cudgel. To rub one down with an oaken towel; to beat or cudgel him.
1802		Sussex Advertiser 23 Aug. 2/4: To leave thee Moll, to pine and languish, / I own deserves an oaken towel.
1803		C. Dibdin Britons Strike Home 12: An English oak towel, shall bodder your breath.
1816		J.H. Lewis Lectures on Art of Writing (1840) 39: I am a Master of Arts [...] Knight of the Cane cudgel – and Brandisher of the Birchen Towel.
1822		(con. early 17C) W. Scott Fortunes of Nigel I 26: To be taken after a gentle rubbing-down with an English oaken towel.
[1833		W. Carleton Traits and Stories of Irish Peasantry III 10: Och! I wish you’d hear the sackin’ I gave Tom Reilly [...] rubbed him down, as the mashter says, wid a Greek towel].
1838		Worcs Chron. 6 Sept. 2/2: He thought a gentle rubbing down with an oaken towel would be effectual in calming the overflow of bounce.
1843		R.S. Surtees Handley Cross (1854) 100: If you persist in playin’ marbles [...] I’ll send you back to the charity school whence you came where you’ll be rubbed down twice a day with an oak towel.
1844		Hereford Times 28 Dec. 2/2: He is not always so fortunate in escaping the [...] cane of a cautious father, or the more dangerous ‘oaken towel’ of an irascible brother.
1859		Matsell Vocabulum 60: oak towel An oaken cudgel.
1862		E. de la Bédollière Londres et les Anglais 316/2: oaken, [...] To rub a man down with an oaken towel, frotter un homme avec une serviette de chêne, lui administrer une volée de coups de bâton.
1871		Sportsman (London) ‘Notes on News’ 5 Aug. 4/1: The operation which Commodore Trunnion described as ‘rubbing a man down with an oak plant’ has been equalled by another [etc].
1873		Sportsman (London) ‘Notes on News’ 23 Dec. 2/1: Mr Overton [...] has just been ‘rubbing down with an oaken towel’ a person named Tidbury.
1898		Blackburn Standard 9 July 2/8: She ordered the fellow to be drawn through the horse-pond [...] and then to be well rubbed down with an oaken towel.
1927		‘Jargon of the Und.’ in DN V 457: Oak towel, A club. ‘The flatty give me a damn good rub down with his oak towel.’.
1984		Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 815/1: C.18–mid-19.