Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also large house) the workhouse.

1852		Church of Eng. Mag. 14 Aug. 102/2: [from Mayhew, London Labour] Long as we can keep out of the big house (the workhouse) we don t complain.
1859, 1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc.
1861		(con. 1840s–50s) H. Mayhew London Labour and London Poor II 178/1: Their invariable refuge is the workhouse [...] and talk of it as ‘the house’ par excellence, or as ‘the big house’.
1864, 1867, 1870		Hotten Sl. Dict. 74: Big House, or large house the workhouse, ? a phrase used by the very poor.
1873		Sl. Dict. [as cit. 1864].
1882		Dundee Courier (Scot.) 14 July 7/2: ‘You’ve just come out of the big house, ha’nt you?’ ‘ Yes; but how do you know?’ ‘Can smell the brimstone on your toggery. It’s an infernal shame they should bake (fumigate) a fellow’s clothes just before he comes out’.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues IV 156/2: large house. subs. (common). – A workhouse.
1910		Derbys. Advertiser 2 Dec. 25/4: On reaching the ‘big house’ I found [...] a crowd of about a dozen roadsters.
1935		Thieves Slang ms list from District Police Training Centre, Ryton-on-Dunsmore, Warwicks 2: Big House: Work house.

2. (US) the owner’s house on a slave plantation.

1900

B.T. Washington Up from Slavery (1901) 128: The mansion house—or ‘big house,’ as it would have been called—which had been occupied by the owners during slavery, had been burned.

3. a theatre.

1905

Sporting Times 4 Feb. 1/5: Last Monday a poor blighter of a struggling baritone did the first-turn-after-breakfast at a big house where the acting-manager alone sat in the front row of the stalls.

4. (US Und., also big house up the river, big stir, prison, esp. S.Afr. Und.) Pretoria Central prison; sometimes ext. as big house up the river, San Quentin prison.

1890		R.T. Devlin Report to State Board of Prison Directors of California 13: In addition to the ‘big’ house, or prison portion, there are ‘trust’ houses outside the walls.
1901		N.Y. State Conference of Charities and Correction 10: The gates of the ‘big house up the river’ swing outward for him.
1908		Reformatory Press 11 6072: And here you are in a hop joint the next day after vou are out of the big house.
1911		D. Runyon ‘The Informal Execution of Soupbone Pew’ in From First to Last (1954) 67: I’ve been so close to being taken that I could hear the gates of the Big House slam.
1914		Wash. Post 11 Nov. Misc. 3/4: The professional criminal of the day is [...] doing ‘time’ in the ‘big house,’ which designates the penitentiary.
1920		F. Williams Hop-Heads 25: I went into the ‘big house’ (penitentiary) a bad boy. I came out a hard man.
1928		J. Callahan Man’s Grim Justice 109: No convict had ever got away from the ‘big stir.’.
1933		J. Spenser Limey 8: The convict is just ‘sent up the river to the Big House’.
1941		V. Davis Phenomena in Crime 63: He mentioned [...] the time ‘The Steeple jack’ would spend in the ‘Big House’.
1948		D. Burley N.Y. Amsterdam News 7 Feb. 12: [His] mother did the laundry for Massa Cap’n Boss in the Big House.
1952		H. McCoy Corruption City 32: Mike often wondered how they had missed the big house.
1962		A. La Guma Walk in the Night (1968) 17: While he’s in the big-house [i.e. Pretoria] Flippy gets to hearing about Cully messing around with his goose.
1967–8		C. Bukowski Notes of a Dirty Old Man (1973) 67: The guy in the bighouse is a Loser who has tried.
1978		R. Caron Go-Boy! 130: graduated from the reformatory to the big house with honours.
1986		E. Weiner Howard the Duck 137: They arrested me at the plant! I’m gonna do hard time in the Big House.
1999		D. Looser ‘Boob Jargon’ in NZEJ 13 36: big house n. Prison.
1999		E. Bunker Mr Blue 143: Now I was in the ‘Big House,’ as someone called it in a movie.
2000		(con. 1940s–60s) Décharné Straight from the Fridge Dad 12: Big house up the river Sing Sing prison.
2000		R.G. Barrett Leaving Bondi (2013) [ebook] Firstly, thanks for all your letters. I [...] Especially my readers in various big houses across Australia.
2001		D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 17/1: big house, the n. a prison; usually applied to Paremoremo Prison, or (less commonly) Mount Eden Prison.
2004		T.I. ‘T.I. vs T.I.P.’ 🎵 One false move and it’s back to the big house / The judge told our ass ‘one more time’ and we ain’t gettin’ out.
2005		B. Hare Urban Grimshaw 179: Sparky, Frank and Sketter were a dangerous [...] combination. Each one was heading for the big house.
2012		(con. 1943) G.S. Manson Coorparoo Blues [ebook] [I]f he jumped out waving a gun at cops [...] he might end up in the big house.
2013		T. Black ‘Too Close to Call’ in Killing Time in Las Vegas [ebook] I reached round to the .45 and took off the safety [...] this was my ticket back to the Big House.

5. any large, forbidding institution, esp. a psychiatric institution.

1966

T.C. Bambara ‘The Hammer Man’ in Gorilla, My Love (1972) 42: He was in some kind of big house for people who lose their marbles.