Execution Dock - History

History

The legal jurisdiction for the British Admiralty was for all crimes committed at sea. The dock symbolised that jurisdiction by being located just beyond the low-tide mark in the river. Anybody who had committed crimes on the seas, either in home waters or abroad, would eventually be brought back to London and tried by the High Court of the Admiralty .

Capital punishment was reserved for acts of mutiny that resulted in death and for murders on the High Seas. Those sentenced to death were usually brought to Execution Dock from Marshalsea Prison (although some were also transported from the Newgate). The condemned were paraded across London Bridge past the Tower of London. The procession was led by the High Court Marshal on horseback (or his deputy). He carried a silver oar that represented the authority of the Admiralty. Prisoners were transported in a cart to Wapping, with them was a chaplain who encouraged them to confess their sins. Just like the execution procession to Tyburn, condemned prisoners were allowed to drink a quart of ale at a public house on the way to the gallows. An execution at the dock usually meant that crowds lined the river's banks or chartered boats moored in the Thames to get a better view of the hangings. Executions were conducted by the hangmen who worked at either Tyburn and Newgate Prison.

With a particular cruelty reserved for those convicted of acts of piracy, hanging was done with a shortened rope. This meant a slow death from strangulation on the scaffold as the drop was insufficient to break the prisoner's neck. It was called the Marshal's dance because their limbs would often be seen to 'dance' from slow asphyxiation. Unlike hangings on land such as at Tyburn, the bodies of pirates at Execution Dock were not immediately cut down following death. Customarily, these corpses were left hanging on the nooses until at least three tides had washed over their heads. This practice stopped at the end of the 18th century. In the cases of the most notorious offenders, the Admiralty would order that their bodies were to be tarred and hung in chains at either Cuckold's Point or Blackwall Point- on the River Thames - as a warning to all seafarers about the fate awaiting those who turned to piracy.

An account from The Gentleman's Magazine, dated February 4, 1796, gives a vivid portrayal of a typical execution at London's Execution Dock.

"This morning, a little after ten o'clock, Colley, Cole, and Blanche, the three sailors convicted of the murder of Captain Little, were brought out of Newgate, and conveyed in solemn procession to Execution Dock, there to receive the punishment awarded by law. On the cart on which they rode was an elevated stage; on this were seated Colley, the principal instigator in the murder, in the middle, and his two wretched instruments, the Spaniard Blanche, and the Mulatto Cole, on each side of him; and behind, on another seat, two executioners. Colley seemed in a state resembling that of a man stupidly intoxicated, and scarcely awake, and the two discovered little sensibility on this occasion, nor to the last moment of their existence, did they, as we hear, make any confession. They were turned off about a quarter before twelve in the midst of an immense crowd of spectators. On the way to the place of execution, they were preceded by the Marshall of the Admiralty in his carriage, the Deputy Marshall, bearing the silver oar, and the two City Marshals on horseback, Sheriff's officers, etc. The whole cavalcade was conducted with great solemnity."

The infamous Captain Kidd, who had been convicted of piracy and murder, was taken from Newgate Prison and executed at the dock in 1701. During his execution, the rope broke and Kidd was hanged on the second attempt. His remains were gibbeted by the river Thames at Tilbury for three years.

Sailors George Davis and William Watts, who were convicted of murdering a ship's captain, were the final hangings at the dock on December 16, 1830.