D3864-15

Reportedly Captain Kidd's body hanging in an iron cage Long Caption: Illustration from 'The Pirates Own Book : or Authentic Narratives of the Lives, Exploits and Executions of the Most Celebrated Sea Robbers', by Charles Ellms, published by Thomas, Coperthwaite, 1844, page 165. Kidd was hanged at Execution Dock, Wapping, on 23 May 1701 and his body gibbeted at Tilbury Point, near Gravesend. This much later woodcut purporting to show his body in an iron strapwork gibbet cage - which kept the usually tarred corpse intact- is well known but geographically and historically inaccurate. It in fact shows a man in an early 19th-century theatrical notion of 18th-century pirate dress, hanging on what is probably intended to be the lower gibbet on Blackwall Point (now the North Greenwich peninsula) with the masthouse of the celebrated Blackwall shipyard, on the north side of the Thames, behind on the right. The masthouse was a well-known Thames landmark when the print was made, but was only built in 1793 and taken down in 1862. The lower gibbet on Blackwall Point was on the downstream side towards Woolwich. There was also an upper gibbet, on the west side, which is the one sometimes seen in eastward-looking views from Greenwich. It is possible this woodcut may have been done for an earlier purpose, unconnected with Kidd, and reused by Ellms with its misleading 1844 caption added. Credit line: © National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, London Object: PBE2832 Artist: unknown Date: 19th century Medium: engraving Size: unknown Click here to buy a bespoke print of this image.