Execution Dock, on the shoreline at Wapping, was used to execute pirates, smugglers and mutineers who had been sentenced to death by Admiralty courts.
The Admiralty’s legal jurisdiction was for all crimes committed at sea. The dock symbolised the jurisdiction by being located just beyond the low-tide mark in the river.
George Davis and William Watts, convicted for piracy for the Cyprus mutiny, were the final hangings at the dock on 16 December 1830.
