Caroline Biggs has lived all her life in Cambridge. She was an active Trustee of The Museum of Cambridge, where she founded a history festival to redress the massive imbalance between the historical knowledge about the ‘town’ as opposed to the ‘gown’. She has a Diploma in Creative Writing from the University of Cambridge and an MA in Biography and Creative Non-Fiction from UEA. She has previously researched and written several booklets about the history of Cambridge.
Author of The Spinning House
The Spinning House: How Cambridge University Locked Up Women in its Private Prison by Caroline Biggs
In 1561, Elizabeth I put her signature to a charter that would remain law for more than 300 years, giving the vice-chancellor of Cambridge University substantial powers over the city to guard its male students from immoral temptations. These included the right to imprison “all public women, procuresses, vagabonds… found guilty or suspected of evil”. Between 1823 and 1894 alone, university proctors and special constables known as “bulldogs” carried out more than 6,000 arrests. No confessions or statements were taken, no proof of drunkenness or solicitation required.
In The Spinning House, Cambridge local Caroline Biggs chronicles the rise and fall of the private prison through the stories of four women held there: Elizabeth Howe, Emma Kemp, Jane Elsden and Daisy Hopkins. The sentences at the Spinning House were short, but for many proved consequential. Howe, for example, died 25 days after her arrest for being suspected of being a “loose and disorderly person”. The coroner deemed prison conditions to be the cause. Biggs deftly blends historical research with creative retelling, bringing prison records to full and chilling life. By Pippa Bailey, New Statesman
Caroline’s experience of working with The Writing Coach:
Working with The Writing Coach certainly improved both my writing and confidence. In fact I can say I learnt more about writing during the process than I’d learnt on the MA in Creative Writing I under took a few years before.
