This meant a slow death from strangulation on the scaffold as the drop was insufficient to break the prisoner's neck. With a particular cruelty reserved for those convicted of acts of piracy, hanging was done with a shortened rope.

Executions were conducted by the hangmen who worked at either Tyburn or Newgate Prison. 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 hanging. 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. Prisoners were transported in a cart to Wapping with them was a chaplain who encouraged them to confess their sins. He carried a silver oar that represented the authority of the Admiralty. The procession was led by the High Court Marshal (or his deputy) on horseback. The condemned were paraded across London Bridge and past the Tower of London. Those sentenced to death were usually brought to Execution Dock from Marshalsea Prison (although some were also transported from Newgate Prison).

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.Ĭapital punishment was applied to acts of mutiny that resulted in death, for murders on the High Seas, and specific violations of the Articles of War governing the behaviour of naval sailors, including sodomy. The dock symbolised that jurisdiction by being located just beyond the low-tide mark in the river. The British Admiralty's legal jurisdiction was for all crimes committed at sea. Captain Kidd, gibbeted near Tilbury in Essex, following his execution in 1701.

Pirate latitudes