A gallows is a frame or elevated beam, typically wooden, from which objects can be suspended or "weighed". Gallows were thus widely used to suspend public weighing scales for large and heavy objects such as sacks of grain or minerals, usually positioned in markets or toll gates. The term was also used for a projecting framework from which a ship's anchor might be raised so it is no longer sitting on the seabed, riverbed or dock; "weighing [the] anchor" meant raising it using this apparatus while avoiding striking the ship's hull.
Unidentified men wait at the gallows before execution of Melquiades Chapa and Jose Buenrostro on May 19, 1916, in Brownsville, Texas.
Illustration of hanging during the Thirty Years' War
These gallows in Tombstone Courthouse State Historic Park are maintained for historical purposes by Arizona State Parks.
New Drop gallows in Rutland County Museum
Arson in royal dockyards and armories was a criminal offence in the United Kingdom and the British Empire. It was among the last offences that were punishable by capital punishment in the United Kingdom. The crime was created by the Dockyards etc. Protection Act 1772 passed by the Parliament of Great Britain, which was designed to prevent arson and sabotage against vessels, dockyards, and arsenals of the Royal Navy.
John the Painter, hanged for committing arson in a royal dockyard in 1777.
