Tyburn Tyburn gallows were last used on 3 November 1783, when John Austin, a highwayman, was hanged; for the next eighty-five years hangings were staged outside Newgate prison. Then, in 1868, due to public disorder during these public executions, it was decided to execute the convicts inside the prison. The site of the gallows is now marked by three young oak trees that were planted in 2014 on an island in the middle of Edgware Road at its junction with Bayswater Road. Between the trees is a roundel with the inscription "The site of Tyburn Tree". It is also commemorated by
John Austin (legal philosopher) John Austin (legal philosopher) John Austin (3 March 1790 – 1 December 1859) was a noted English legal theorist who strongly influenced British and American law with his analytical approach to jurisprudence and his theory of legal positivism. In opposing traditional "natural law" approaches, Austin argued against any necessary connections between law and morality. Human legal systems, he claimed, can and should be studied in an empirical, value-free way. Austin was born on 3 March 1790 at Creeting St Mary, the eldest son of a well-to-do Suffolk miller. After spending five years in the army during the Napoleonic Wars, Austin