Gibbeting refers to the use of a gallows type structure from which the dead bodies of criminals were hung in a cage or in chains on public display to deter existing or potential criminals.
Occasionally the gibbet was also used as a method of execution, with the criminal being left to die of exposure, thirst and/or starvation.
This cache will take you to Gibbet Hill, site of the last recorded case of gibbeting in a British colony.
In 1837, five years after the practice had ceased in England, the body of John Mackay (or McKay) was gibbeted near the location where he murdered Joseph Wilson, a passenger on a mail coach.
Following his execution in Hobart, Mackay’s body was brought to the gibbet to hang as warning to other potential highwaymen.
After four months exposed to the elements, the corpse became a putrid eye-sore and the local townsfolk successfully petitioned to have it taken down - the body was buried beneath the gibbet.