What a chore!
On 8th December the English Sunday newspaper, The Observer, (very respectable, somewhat left-wing) published, on pages 14 and 15 an article entitled “Cambridge jail for ‘evil women’ locked up to save students’ souls”. It deals with said jail, called the Spinning House” which was established in 1561 and endured for nearly 350 years and was entirely within the jurisdiction of Cambridge University which arrested, tried and imprisoned young women found alone on the streets of Cambridge or in the company of students, because they might be prostitutes or might corrupt the students.
Corporal punishment was used and it is recorded that in 1748 the Vice-Chancellor (the principal of a university) paid the town crier (probably the same officer as the beadle in Oliver Twist) 10 shillings (that’s half a pound) to whip 10 unruly women. As it was the Spinning House, these would have been young women or girls.
The article has no more detail on corporal punishment for inmates, but it seems a potentially fruitful area for further research. Perhaps other LSF readers know more?
Geoffrey Stirling. | 
