Spinning House

The Spinning House, also known as the Cambridge House of Correction and Hobson's Bridewell,[1] was a workhouse and 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] 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.

This Cambridgeshire location article is a stub.