A Brief History
On November 3, 1783, highwayman John Austin became the last person to be publicly hanged at London's Tyburn gallows.
Digging Deeper
For centuries Tyburn, formerly a village, but now in London, had the infamous distinction of being the principal place of execution in England's capital for criminals, traitors, and even religious martyrs. Executions and sometimes public torture occurred in Tyburn from at least 1196 until 1783. The executed included noblemen and commoners alike of both sexes. Even the dead could be “executed” there, as was the case of notorious rebel Oliver Cromwell's whose corpse was disinterred so as to be publicly mutilated as a caution to would be traitors to the monarchy.
