Why Bentham chose this specific fate for his remains isn’t known. If it should so happen that my personal friends and other disciples should be disposed to meet together on some day or days of the year for the purpose of commemorating the founder of the greatest happiness system of morals and legislation, my executor will from time to time cause to be conveyed to the room in which they meet the said box or case with the contents therein to be stationed in such part of the room as to the assembled company shall … meet. The body so clothed, together with the chair and the staff in the my later years borne by me, he will take charge of and for containing the whole apparatus he will cause to be prepared an appropriate box or case and will cause to be engraved in conspicuous characters on a plate to be affixed thereon and also on the labels on the glass cases in which the preparations of the soft parts of my body shall be contained … my name at length with the letters OB followed by the day of my decease. He will cause the skeleton to be clad in one of the suits of black occasionally worn by me. I direct that the body thus prepared shall be transferred to my executor. The skeleton he will cause to be put together in such a manner as that the whole figure may be seated in a chair usually occupied by me when living, in the attitude in which I am sitting when engaged in thought in the course of time employed in writing. My body I give to my dear friend Doctor Southwood Smith to be disposed of in a manner hereinafter mentioned, and I direct (that) he will take my body under his charge and take the requisite and appropriate measures for the disposal and preservation of the several parts of my bodily frame in the manner expressed in the paper annexed to this my Will and at the top of which I have written Auto Icon.

You see, in his Will, Bentham left very specific, and somewhat peculiar, instructions of what he wanted done with his body: While he was a prolific writer from childhood up to the day he died, it is what happened after his death on Jthat is the subject of this article. In his spare time, he also was one of the founding fathers of utilitarianism. So instead, he dedicated his life to writing about the inequities in law and proposing numerous social reforms- everything from advocating for a minimum wage, gay rights, universal suffrage, equal rights for women, ending slavery, separation of church and state, freedom of expression, the end of physical punishment (both concerning children and criminals), animal welfare, and ceasing capital punishment. But after listening to leading law practitioners of the time, such as Sir William Blackstone, Bentham became disillusioned with the career path. Due to his son’s very apparent intelligence, being something of an intellectual prodigy, he even had wild ambitions for Jeremy to ascend to the position of Lord Chancellor of England.Īnd, indeed, Young Jeremy showed a propensity for learning at an early age, starting to learn Latin at the age of three and attending the Queen’s College Oxford at twelve. His father, a lawyer, believed Bentham would follow in his footsteps and enter the law profession. Jeremy Bentham was born on Februin London, England.

Eyeballs in a jar