Spinning House
Workhouse and prison in Cambridge, England
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Spinning House, also known as the Cambridge House of Correction and Hobson's Bridewell,[1] was a workhouse and a prison built in St Andrew's Street, Cambridge in the 1600s[2] and demolished in 1901.[3] In the Victorian era, it held local women suspected by the Proctors of having a corrupting influence on the male student population, until this power was removed by Act of Parliament in 1893.[4]
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This removal followed the high-profile case of 17-year-old Daisy Hopkins, who was arrested in 1891 for the crime of "walking with a member of the university"; she sued the Proctor and lost in a trial that severely attacked her moral character[5] but nevertheless prompted public debate about the legitimacy of such arrests.
The site of the Spinning House is marked by a blue plaque.
