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The story of Tom Otter, a murderer who was executed and gibbeted in 1806, has many striking features. Not least, this form of brutal and bodily post-mortem punishment seems rather anachronistic during a period often described in terms of increasing gentility and humanity. It took place within the legal context of the Murder Act (1752), which specified that the bodies of murderers had to be either dissected or hung in chains. Other aggravated death penalties were applied to those convicted of treason and suicide. A number of common misconceptions about the gibbet need to be corrected.

The criminal corpse undertook a journey from the scaffold to the gibbet. The gibbet was commonly located near the scene of crime and in a conspicuous location, usually within sight of a major road. Customary gibbet places existed in London and in some coastal location, but usually the body was transported from the place of execution to the place of hanging in chains. Sometimes, especially earlier in our period, criminals were executed and hung in chains from the same scaffold at the scene of crime. Gibbet cages were made quickly and did not develop local styles. The scene of a gibbeting was often a rowdy and carnivalesque occasion.

Gibbets could remain standing for many decades. Some were removed because their presence was objectionable; others were eventually brought down by time and the weather. Sometimes, bodies were stolen. Folklore was attached to the locations of gibbets and to the remains which stayed there, and often the names of gibbeted criminals are still attached to places in their landscapes. Parts of the gibbet and of the bodies themselves were collected and curated, sometimes for utilitarian or scientific purposes but often just as curiosities. The case of Eugene Aram’s skull is a case in point.

Given the very high cost of hanging somebody in chains, why was it ever carried out? It was intended to make a deterrent impression on potential criminals and to demonstrate the power and order of the State. However, the many and variable responses to hanging in chains meant that the practice did not always have the intended effect. Gibbetings were infrequent and memorable and served to make the names and histories of those so treated memorable and enduring. Even the very last occasions of hanging in chains were massively popular events, so the distaste expressed by some newspaper commentators was not universally shared.