Green’s Dictionary of Slang

deadly nevergreen n.

the gallows.

1785		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Deadly, never green, that bears fruit all the year round, the gallows, or three legged mare.
1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (3rd edn) n.p.: Deadly Nevergreen, that bears fruit all the year round. The gallows, or three-legged mare.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1796].
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue [as cit. 1796].
1834		‘Jack Downing’ Andrew Jackson 36: Things which, war another tu do them, wou’d make the derrick put him up jist upon the deadly never green.
1861		Exeter & Plymouth Gaz. 29 Mar. 3/2: There they pass, from the Tower [...] to the triangular erection on ‘Deadly Never-Green’.
1862		E. de la Bédollière Londres et les Anglais 314/1: deadly nevergreen, that bears fruit all the year round, [...] la potence.
1892		Shields Dly Gaz. 9 July 2/7: Connaught Place may have banished [...] all memories of the innumerable sordid tragedies which for 400 years ended on its site [...] before that ‘deadly nevergreen tree’.