wharf near Execution Dock

Victorian wharf at low water, with wooden bulwarks and cast iron fittings, at Wapping Old Stairs, on River Thames; close to site of Execution Dock, where prisoners were executed en masse after arrival from the Marshalsea Prison. Charles Dickens, English novelist, had a lifetime connection with Wapping and Limehouse, setting numerous scenes by the river, including Quilp's yard in The Old Curiosity Shop and Captain Cuttle's home in Dombey And Son. Quilp drowned in such a situation:Daniel Quilp in Dickens's novel The Old Curiosity Shop, who is pursued by the police and, lost in the fog, drowns in the Thames.