John Austin (highwayman) John Austin (highwayman) John Austin (died 7 November 1783) was an English footpad who became the last person to be hanged at the Tyburn gallows outside London. He was sentenced to death for the murder of a labourer called John Spicer from Kent. The Recorder of London, James Adair, described it as a "robbery with violence" that involved "cutting and wounding [...] in a cruel manner." This hanging would mark the end of Tyburn, a village then in the county of Middlesex, being a place of executions for almost 600 years. Austin was brought from Newgate prison in the City
George Lyon (highwayman) is said that he decided to hold up the coach taking the wages to a local coal mine but on the day of his intended crime it was pouring with rain. He stood out to stop the coach too early and the rain ruined the gunpowder in his pistol - the coach's driver, perhaps realising this, simply coaxed the horses into a run and soaked Lyon with muddy water as they flew past. George Lyon was 54 when he was executed in Lancaster by hanging for robbery, as the last highwayman to be hanged there. Sentence was passed on Saturday