Spinning House - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition spinning-house

Definition :

Spinning-house, a place of confinement in Cambridge to which the University authorities might, by virtue of the University Charter (confirmed by 13 Eliz. c. 29), commit public women and others suspected of evil. See Kemp v. Neville, (1861) 10 CBNS 523; Broom's Const. Law, p. 734, in which the Vice-Chancellor was unsuccessfully sued by a Cambridge milliner committed by him after apprehension by a proctor, and Ex parte Hopkins, (1891) 61 LJQB 240, where the conviction of a woman upon a charge of walking with a member of the University was held bad. This jurisdiction was taken away from the University in 1894 by 57 & 58 Vict. c. lx.