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.
