Jeremy Bentham

Jeremy Bentham (IPA: {{IPA|}}) (15 February 1748 – 6 June 1832) was an English gentleman, jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer. He is best known as an early advocate of utilitarianism and animal rights.

Life

Born in Spitalfields, London, into a wealthy Tory family, Bentham was recognised as a child prodigy when discovered as a toddler sitting at his father's desk reading a multi-volume history of England. He studied Latin from the age of three.

Related Topics:
Spitalfields - London - Tory - Child prodigy - Latin

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He went to Westminster School, and in 1760 his father sent him to Queen's College, Oxford, where he took his Bachelor's degree in 1763 and his Master's degree in 1766. Bentham trained as a lawyer and was called to the bar in 1769. A prosperous attorney, his father had decided that Bentham would follow him into the law, and felt quite sure that his brilliant son would one day be Lord Chancellor of England.

Related Topics:
Westminster School - 1760 - Queen's College, Oxford - 1763 - 1766 - Bar - 1769 - Lord Chancellor

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Soon, however, Bentham became disillusioned with the law, especially after hearing the lectures of the leading authority of the day, Sir William Blackstone. Deeply frustrated with the complexity of the English legal code, which he termed the "Demon of Chicane", he decided, instead of practising the law, to write about it, and he spent his life criticising the existing law and suggesting ways for its improvement.

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His father's death in 1792 left him financially independent, allowing him to set himself up as a writer in Westminster. For nearly forty years he lived there quietly, producing between ten and twenty sheets of manuscript a day, even when he was in his eighties. Among his many proposals for legal and social reform was a design for a prison building he called the Panopticon. Although it was never built, the idea had an important influence in later generations of thinkers and influenced the radial design of Pentonville Prison as well as several other prisons.

Related Topics:
1792 - Westminster - Panopticon - Pentonville

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In 1823 he co-founded the Westminster Review with John Stuart Mill as a journal for philosophical radicals.

Related Topics:
1823 - Westminster Review - John Stuart Mill - Philosophical radicals

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Bentham is frequently associated with the foundation of the University of London, which was later to become University College London, though this is misguided: Bentham was eighty years old when the University opened in 1828, and had no part in its establishment. However, Bentham strongly believed that education should be more widely available, particularly to those who were not wealthy or who did not belong to the established church, both qualities being required of students by the traditional universities at Oxford and Cambridge. As University College London was the first English university to admit all, regardless of race, creed or political belief, it was largely consistent with Bentham's vision, and he oversaw the appointment of one of his pupils, John Austin, as the first Professor of Jurisprudence in 1829.

Related Topics:
University of London - University College London - 1828 - Oxford - Cambridge - Race - John Austin - Jurisprudence - 1829

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After death, Bentham's body was (as requested in his will) preserved and stored in a wooden cabinet, termed his "Auto-Icon," at University College London. It has occasionally been brought out of storage at official functions so that Bentham's eccentric presence would live on. The Auto-Icon has always had a wax head, as Bentham's head was badly damaged in the preservation process. The real head was displayed in the same case for many years, but became the target of repeated student pranks, being stolen on more than one occasion, and is now locked away securely.

Related Topics:
Will - University College London - Wax

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There is a plaque on Queen Anne's Gate, Westminster commemorating the house where Bentham lived. At that time it was called Queen's Square Place.

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