Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a bailiff’s lock-up.

1696		Motteux (trans.) Gargantua and Pantagruel (1927) II Bk V 542: Folks go easier out of a church than out of a spunging-house.
1700		T. Brown Amusements Serious and Comical in Works (1744) III 22: I cannot come within a furlong of the Rose spunging-house, without five or six yellow-boys in my pockets.
1715		Proceedings Old Bailey 27 Apr. 5/1: Her Husband had been arrested by one Exton a Bailiff, and kept in his Spunging-house till he had made up his Business.
1723		C. Walker Authentick Memoirs of Sally Salisbury 137: She perswaded the Creditors to send Two Bayliffs, who carry’d me to a Spunging-house.
1734		C. Johnson Hist. of Highwaymen 436: Mr. Wild being apprehended somewhere near Woodstreet, [was] carried into the Rose Spunging-house.
1747		H. Simms Life of Henry Simms/Alias Young Gentleman Harry 23: I was informed that M—m’s Wife was arrested in a Fob Action, and sent to a Spunging-House.
1756		W. Toldervy Hist. of the Two Orphans III 74: Poor Duroy had the mortification of being carried into the comfortless confines of a London spunging-house.
1771		Foote Maid of Bath Married I iv: By an act of grace at the day of judgement, out of a spunging-house, into a blacker hole than any in Newgate.
1788		G.A. Stevens Adventures of a Speculist I 72: I have myself heard an insolvent in the spunging-house declare he was sure the bailiff [...] had a deal of compassion for him.
1797		M. Leeson Memoirs (1995) III 232: Serjeant Kite [...] carried me to his spunging-house, without a shilling in my pocket.
c.1800		‘The Jolly Butcher’ No. 26 Papers of Francis Place (1819) n.p.: No bail could he get / And he lies for debt / At a spunging house at Wapping.
1808		(con. 1763) J. Malcolm Anecdotes of Manners and Customs 282: A female servant who was arrested for debt, and sent to a receiving or spunging house.
1812		Spirit of Irish Wit 252: A tradesman was arrested [...] and was hearing a newspaper read in a sponging-house.
1826		C.M. Westmacott Eng. Spy II 243: I’m at Tattersall’s all but believed a defaulter, / And here, in a spunging house, shut by a bum.
1829		Times 2 Sept. 4/1: She as obliged to pass another night in the sponging-house.
1832		S. Warren Diary of a Late Physician in Works (1854) III 122: He was arrested for a debt of £110 [...] and carried off to a spunging-house in Chancery Lane.
1839		Comic Almanack Sept. 190: I was obliged to march off to a sponging house, along with a horrid sheriff’s officer!
1842		S. Lover Handy Andy 291: I have seen a litherary gentleman in a sponging house do crack things on the wall, with a bit of burnt stick.
1849		Thackeray Pendennis I 45: His end was in a spunging-house, where the sheriff’s officer, who took him, was fond of him.
1858		R.S. Surtees Ask Mamma 244: Young Mr. Mordecai Nathan [...] having assisted in the provincial department of his father’s catchpoll business in the glorious days of writs and sponging-houses.
1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn) 225: SPUNGING-house, the sheriff’s officer’s house, where prisoners, when arrested for debt, are sometimes taken.
1865		G.A. Sala My Diary in America I 61: Sam Johnson [...] who was a dozen times locked up in a sponging-house.
1873		‘Cuthbert Bede’ Little Mr. Bouncer 141: He was being arrested for unpaid debts, and was being clandestinely conveyed to a sponging-house.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. (2 edn) 8: Spunging-house - The sheriff’s officer’s house, where prisoners for debt used to be taken.
1886		M.E. Braddon Mohawks III 151: It is still more wonderful to me, Bob, how you contrive to keep out of the sponging-house.
1894		G.A. Sala Things I Have Seen II 58: If you had a sufficiency of petty cash about you, you might elect to be taken to the sheriff’s officer’s own private place of durance, which, in popular parlance, was known as a ‘spunging-house.’.
1894		Truth (Sydney) Feb. 1/1: ‘Truth’ Thinks [...] That the Debtors’ Prison is used as a sponging-house.
1896		M. Williams Round London 131: I [...] was whisked off, in company with the myrmidons of the law, to Slowman’s, the sponging-house in Cursitor Street.
1903		A. Binstead Pitcher in Paradise 12: Shifter was borne off to a sponging-house in the city.

2. a police station, a lock-up.

1853

Bell’s Life in Sydney 29 Jan. 3/1: Inspector Moss of the Amazonian drgaoons made a successful sortie and dragged poor Polly into their sponging house.

3. a brothel.

1965

G. Melly Owning Up (1974) 26: I will not tolerate this house becoming a common bagnio, a sponge house, a place of assignation, a pimp’s brothel.