Remembering Cambridge’s “Spinning Houses”, a University Institution that imprisoned local townswomen to “protect” male students.

“The young men must be properly protected […] lest wicked women ruin their careers,” declares an unnamed Vice Chancellor to a local Cambridge townswoman, Daisy Simpkins. “You leave me no alternative but to sentence you to three weeks imprisonment in the Spinning House. The sentence begins immediately! Proctor, I commend you on your diligence.”  What was Daisy’s crime, you might ask? ‘Public women’ and all other women “suspected of evil” were arrested and tried by Cambridge’s Vice Chancellor in the Spinning House for being in the company of a member of the University. There was no jury; and prisoners like Daisy were denied counsel.   

First performed in Corpus Christi on the 13th of June 1954,  in a self-described ‘concert entertainment in one act’, ‘Daisy Simpkins or The Spinning House’ dramatises a dark chapter of the University’s history. Simpkins is  closely based on two real Cambridge townswomen  from the late nineteenth century, Daisy Hopkins and Jane Elsden. Hopkins, aged 17,  was sentenced to fourteen days in Cambridge’s House of Correction in 1898 for talking to a married Cambridge student, Mr Russell. The “Spinning House”, located on Regent’s Street, was a workhouse and prison which held local women suspected by University Proctors of having a corrupting influence on male students. Hopkins was sentenced for fourteen days of imprisonment, but released after ten days since she was not technically charged. Later, an application was made on behalf of Hopkins for habeas corpus, the post-conviction doctrine that assesses the legality of a person’s detention, and she sued the University Proctors for £1000 in damages. The story was a cause of moral indignation at the time, even gaining coverage in columns in The New York Times, who reported on Hopkin’s action against University Proctors and her eventual loss in the lawsuit was recounted as being a systematic destruction of her moral character. 

The University’s historic role in holding women suspected of being prostitutes and taking them off the street has come under heightened public scrutiny this year. This is, in part, due the publication of a monograph entitled The Spinning House: How Cambridge University Locked Up Women in its Private Prison by Caroline Biggs. Published in April 2024, Biggs cogently describes how University proctors and “bulldogs” (special constables) arrested more than 6000 women between 1823 and 1894, typically for short stays.  Even if innocent, any association with the Spinning House was nothing but detrimental to these women. Biggs details the stories of two other women, Elizabeth Howe and Emma Kemp, in addition to the two women who inspired the script for  ‘Daisy Simpkins or The Spinning House’. Howe died 25 days after her arrest. The coroner attributed Howe’s death to prison conditions. It was only in 1894 when an Act of Parliament revoked the University’s Elizabethan charter that gave the Vice Chancellor the right to arrest these women. There have been a growing number of calls for reparative justice from activists as this story is being shared more widely beyond a group of local historians.

The much earlier dramatisation of this episode in the University’s history by Cambridge students in ‘Daisy Simpkins or The Spinning House’ underscores the value of archival records of student activity which might otherwise be forgotten. Progressive student commentary may only be appreciated decades on from its creation. I found the script for this play in the digital archives of Peter Tranchell, a former Precentor and Director of Studies in Music at Gonville & Caius College. Christs’ College also has a framed poster of the 1954 May Week Concert where the script was performed in its archives. The well-preserved nature of this libretto is an entirely unique and rare situation. Often, scripts, zines and student pamphlets swiftly fast out of the collective memory of the student body – the absence of a written record or review relegate student projects to be forgotten after a few years, and impassioned activist campaigns often fall flat after a few years. Initiatives, or boycotts, are only guaranteed to have a short lifespan in a dynamic student body that embodies the character of the city for no more than three or four years. Anything that “sticks around” is truly an exception. Tranchell’s role in the University must have certainly helped with this, as the script has been subsequently re-performed by choirs in Selwyn in 1962, Christ’s College in 1965 and later in Gonville & Caius in 1989. The cover image shared by Selwyn College in 2018 on social media shows the Selwyn choir’s rehearsal ahead of the 1962 production with Tranchell at the piano.

Fleeting passages feel as true in 2024 as they were to the students who wrote the script in 1954, almost certainly with the intention of capturing the atmosphere of the University in 1898 (“Let’s set off for ale at the Eagle, Or sample the beer at the Mill.”). The interaction between the Proctor and The Undergraduate (“Proctor: Good evening Sir, are you a member of this University? Undergraduate: Yes, indeed Sir.”) are still firmly part of the conversational scripts between students and college members stationed at the Porters Lodge – or guarding college entrances and controlling tourist flows through designated walk paths in the special case of King’s College.  

Portrayals of a cold, harsh institution  may, perhaps, resonate with certain groups of the University community, variously frustrated with out of touch or insensitive policies or decisions. Daisy, with a tinge of sarcasm and desperation, says to the University Vice Chancellor that “Your Majesty! I am innocent” to be met with a blunt response –  “Answer overruled”. Historical points of continuity in the Cambridge experience in biographies are certainly a valuable way for current students to rationalise and reconcile their own experiences with the past.

Student-produced art has a unique function to challenge and even satirise institutionalised conventions. The main takeaway from ‘Daisy Simpkins or The Spinning House’ presents a much starker picture of the exclusionary character of Cambridge, particularly towards women. The play’s dialogue is damning and unwavering:  “Our authority needs rigidly maintaining over women we think to be immoral, so be calm, so be calm; we will save our undergrads from harm!” says the fictitious Vice Chancellor.  Relics of this permeate modern experiences of the University, though Proctorial influence on contemporary University life are clearly not so stringent. However, students are still subjected to residency requirements within the radius of Great St Mary’s Church, for example, while former posts such as the office of Special Pro-Proctor for Motor Vehicles have been subsumed into other positions. You might still get a fine of £175 for breaking University regulations on keeping motor vehicles. During the pandemic, students were subjected to a wide range of disciplinary measures, including reflective essays, fines and similar punishments, which were in many ways reminiscent of a historic overwhelming degree of control that the University had over its students. 

The University’s historic power of the city to guard male students from moral impropriety is evident in other biographies of student experiences, such as  JJ Oppenheimer’s troubled sojourn at Cambridge.   Oppenheimer wrote to his close friend Francis Fergusson that “I’m having a pretty bad time. The lab work here is a terrible bore, and I am so bad at it that it is impossible to feel that I am learning anything … the lectures are vile”, despite indulging in “High Maths at Trinity, a secret pacifist meeting, a Zionist meeting and several rather pallid science clubs.” This clearly reflects the quasi-monastic lifestyle students were expected to adhere to, which drove Oppenheimer to the point of allegedly – at least according to the Bird & Sherwin biography that formed the basis for Christopher Nolan’s film adaptation– to unsuccessfully attempt to poison his supervisor Patrick Blackett.

The dialogue highlights the unique dynamics between the University and the City in Cambridge. Although in ‘the other place’ there are documents that similarly record cautions and committals for Oxford streetwalkers, Cambridge (unlike Oxford) had a ‘thorn in the flesh’, as it owned the prison and clung unremittingly to its right to imprisonment.  The play shows how the townspeople began to (re)claim their civil liberties through petitions, arguments and public meetings: “These Proctorial powers are ridiculous! […] I am on the side of our Daisy, I’ve said; and now she will get a proper trial. It’s a great insult to our young ladies, is this University Jail”. It was the town, not the gown, that drove the events that led to the demolition of The Spinning House in 1901, now marked by a blue plaque on St Andrew’s Street.  As Cambridge’s growing middle class played an increasing role in the town’s development, they helped turn local and national public opinion to bring about changes in university practices. 

Students, and even staff, once they arrive in Cambridge and reconcile their new experiences and come into contact with the institutionalised practices and rituals. Reconciling personal identity with new identity can create a sense of feeling out of place – both in Cambridge and back home. To address this, streetwalking groups, such as those developed by “Uncomfortable Cities”, encourage locals and students to directly confront histories of streetwalking presented in ‘Daisy Simpkins or The Spinning House’, and consider how the consequences of the historical institutionalised practices reverberate in very specific ways in contemporary student experiences. Critics of such initiatives often wonder why Cambridge is “so embarrassed about its past”, in relation to statues,  museum and college artefacts. But, revisiting, challenging and reconceiving the past of Cambridge through art and cultural activities that provide an outlet for social commentary is a fundamentally important part of bringing increasingly diverse strands of the University community together, even if it goes without any formal recognition at the time. 

If there is anything to take away from this story beyond the harrowing experiences of the victims centuries ago, it is that renewed self-reflection through student-led art, commentary and criticism – and preserving a record of student productions– is an essential part of continually shaping, redefining and challenging the identity of self-governing higher education institution.