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THE ‘AUTO-ICON’ OF JEREMY BENTHAM* AT UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON By C.F.A. MARMOY Thane Library of Medical Sciences, University College, London
The foundation in 1826 of the University of London (ten years later renamed University College) was made secure by its outstanding success as a medical school. It was not until 1849 that the medical students were outnumbered by those in arts and laws, so great was the demand for organized medical education open to all comers. In addition, one of the obstacles to medical instruction was removed by the passing of Warburton’s Anatomy Act of 1832. In the creation of the University Jeremy Bentham was influential, and he believed in the need for everyone to have some understanding of scientific and technical problems. In the matter of the legalized supply of bodies for dissection in the medical schools Bentham’s own physician and friend, Southwood Smith, was in no small measure responsible for the legislation being enacted. One hundred and twenty-five years have elapsed since Bentham died on 6 June 1832, at the fine old age of eight-four. Yet, such was his singular destiny, that instead of being interred he is with us still, and may be seen, seated in a large case with a plate-glass front, wearing the clothes he used to put on, and with his stick ‘Dapple’1 in his hand. It is true that a wax head has replaced his own, which is preserved in a mummified state in a box near by. The result is a likeness which—to quote his friend Lord Brougham2‘is so perfect that it seems as if alive’. This was the realization of Bentham’s idea of an ‘Auto-Icon’. For many years there has been considerable confusion both as to the manner and date of Bentham’s arrival in University College, as well as to the identity of the creator of the wax head. As recent findings have established certain facts it is desirable that they should be recorded, for quite eminent authorities have believed that the great social reformer left his body to the College; tradition has also added that he expressed a wish to be present in this state at meetings of the College Council. In a scientific paper published in 1904 M.A. Lewenz and Karl Pearson3 wrote, ‘Bentham left not only his manuscripts but his body to University College, then the University of London . . .’; in fact, Bentham only left some of his books to the Library. Professor Hale Bellot4 gave the truth in his centenary history of the College, observing that Jeremy Bentham came to Gower Street from Southwood Smith when the latter left his consulting-room in Finsbury Square; Bellot did not, however, state when this occurred, his authorities also having omitted that information. To begin the story, reference should be made first to a statement by Southwood Smith,5 contained in a footnote to the printed oration which he had delivered over the body of his great friend. This is as follows: This disposal of his body by the deceased was not a recent act. By a will dated as far back as the year 1769 it was left for the same purpose to his friend Dr. Fordyce. The reason at that time assigned for this, is expressed in the following remarkable words:—‘This my will and special request I make, not out of affectation of singularity, but to the intent and with the desire that mankind may reap some small benefit in and by my decease, having hitherto had small opportunities to contribute thereto while living.’ By a memorandum affixed to this document, it is clear that it had undergone his revision as lately as two months ago, and that this part of it was again deliberately and solemnly confirmed. Bentham was therefore in complete accord with the plea by Southwood Smith, first printed in the Westminster Review for 1824 and later in a pamphlet entitled ‘Use of the Dead to the Living’,6 that people should leave their bodies for dissection and that this should be made legal. It was moreover in the same year (1824) that John Bowring7 recorded a conversation with Bentham to the effect that the latter ‘was full of the notion of having his head preserved in the style of the New Zealanders, and had sent to Dr. Armstrong to consult him about it. Experiments are to be made, and Armstrong is to get a human head from Grainger, the anatomist, which is to be slowly dried in a stove in Bentham's house.’ John Armstrong (1784–1829) and Edward Grainger (1797–1824) both lectured at the latter’s school in Webb Street, where one day Bentham’s body was to be dissected. We shall presumably never know whether the experiments were carried out; Bowring does not say, and it would hardly have been talked about in those days. The proposal may also have been abandoned owing to Grainger’s death the same year. There is in the privately printed Auto-Icon; or, Farther uses of the dead to the living . . . From the MSS. of Jeremy Bentham [1842?]8 a reference to experiments which ‘have been making [sic] in this country, which promise complete success, by the slow exhaustion of the moisture from the human head. Specimens exist in the College of Physicians. In colour only is there any considerable change; and colour may be easily supplied.’ In this pamphlet Bentham explains the ‘Auto-Icon’ as a man who is his own image, preserved for the benefit of posterity. He discusses past methods of preserving bodies and the benefits to mankind derived from anatomical studies performed on dead bodies. Then he debates the legal problems involved in leaving one’s body for dissection, and finally launches into a humorous consideration of the various uses of ‘Auto-Icons’. The authenticity of this work was questioned in 1873 by the bibliographer Ernest Chester Thomas9 while still a student at Trinity College, Oxford. He found a copy of the pamphlet bound up with the Union Society’s set of the collected Works of Jeremy Bentham.10 But he argued that the Auto-Icon was manifestly a spurious work for the following reasons: (1) On external evidence—there is no mention of the editor’s name, nor of publisher or printer [the title-page bears the words ‘Not published’—C.F.A.M.]; the pamphlet is printed on a different paper, and although in double columns like the Works is in a larger and coarser type; (2) internally the pamphlet appears to be ‘an elaborate skit on Benthamite philosophy’. Thomas objects to certain of the uses of the Auto-Icon calling this ‘funereal jesting’, although he admits that the work is ‘marked by the Benthamian formidableness of terminology’. Now had Thomas examined the Works more closely he would have found that the typographical differences he alleges are not correct. In the University College Library and C. K. Ogden sets of the Works the paper varies even in a single volume; thus, in the Library set, vol. 10, section 2b (pp. 369–84), is on thicker paper than section 2n (pp. 545–60) and appears to be the same as that used in the U.C.L. copy of the Auto-Icon. Next, the text of the Works is printed in two different founts, the ‘larger and coarser’ type used in the pamphlet being employed in the ‘Introduction to the study of the works of Jeremy Bentham’ (Works, vol. 1) and in the ‘Memoirs of Bentham’ (Works, vols. 10, 11). Two lines of upper-case type used in the title-page of the Auto-Icon can be matched in the half-title to the ‘Introduction to the study’, etc., just quoted. Finally, a tiny Greek type used for a Homeric quotation on p. 17 is the same as that used in the Works (e.g. vol. 10, p. 411). To refute the internal evidence is less easy, but there are several pieces of evidence to confirm Bentham’s authorship. Although the work is satirical in places, it should be remembered that it was apparently written by Bentham towards the end of his life for his own amusement, and was not intended for publication. The manuscript has not been traced, although it may have been among the many unpublished works which Bowring11 said he did not deem it safe to give to the world even after Bentham’s death, ‘so bold and adventurous were some of his writings’. These he said he deposited in the British Museum, but the Bentham material catalogued there does not seem to include these ‘many’ unpublished writings, and recent inquiry there would indicate that no other Bentham manuscripts are known in the department concerned. There is in the British Museum, however, a printed copy of the Auto-Icon with an inserted letter from the archivist and antiquary William Barclay Turnbull (1811–1863) of Edinburgh to another antiquary, R. W. Eyton, conveying the gift of the pamphlet. In this Turnbull says that ‘It was sent to me by Mr. Burton, one of the Editors of the Collected Works of that defunct oddity Bentham. Dr. Bowring and the publishers did not wish it to be inserted in the book, or indeed preserved at all, lest the fame of their idol should be dimmed by the absurdities of his death bed dreams . . .’ (The letter is dated ‘The Feast of S. Lucy V 1842’; Turnbull was shortly afterwards received into the Roman Catholic Church, and probably did not care to keep the pamphlet.) There is nothing in this to suggest that Bowring denied its authorship. The likelihood that John Hill Burton was in fact the anonymous editor of the pamphlet is reinforced by Arnold Muirhead,12 whose copy bears on the wrapper ‘in the writing of some youthful clerk, the inscription “From Mr. Burton—not for sale”’. Next, among the Bentham papers preserved in University College Library13 there is a cancelled sheet headed ‘1820 June 26/Auto-Icon’.14 In apparently Bentham’s handwriting, this consists of rough notes on the legal aspects of the situation created after death by a bequest of one’s body; an analogy with literary property and a reference to an aerolite on the MS. sheet are also to be found in the pamphlet Auto-Icon. There is further evidence in Jeremy Bentham’s last will,15 which was dated from Queen Square Place, Westminster, Wednesday, 30 May 1832. It is worth giving the relevant part of the will and the annexed paper here: My body I give to my dear friend Doctor Southwood Smith to be disposed of in manner hereinafter mentioned And I direct that as soon as it appears to any one that my life is at an end my executor or any other person by whom on the opening of this paper the contents thereof shall have been observed shall send an express with information of my decease to Doctor Southwood Smith requesting him to repair to the place where my body is lying and after ascertaining by appropriate experiment that no life remains it is my request 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 will and at the top of which I have written ‘Auto-Icon’ The skeleton he will cause to be put together in such 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 the time employed in writing I direct that the body thus prepared shall be transferred to my executor He will cause the skeleton to be clad in one of the suits of black occasionally worn by me The Body so clothed together with the chair and the staff in 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 as for example as in the manner used in the case of wine decanters my name at length with the letters ob. followed by the day of my decease 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 there to be stationed in such part of the room as to the assembled company shall seem meet . . . The annexed paper follows: Auto-Icon—Queen Square Place Westminster 13 April 1830. What follows in a hand different from mine was drawn up some little time ago at my desire by Dr Southwood Smith M.D. Witness my hand—JEREMY BENTHAM The manner in which Mr Benthams body is to be disposed of after his death The Head is to be prepared according to the specimen which Mr Bentham has seen and approved of The Body is to be used as the means of illustrating a series of lectures to which scientific & literary men are to be invited These lectures are to expound the situation structure & functions of the different organs the arrangement & distribution of vessels & whatever may illustrate the mechanism by which the actions of the animal economy — — are performed the object of these lectures being two fold first to communicate curious interesting & highly important knowledge & secondly to show that the primitive horror at dissection originates in ignorance & is kept up by misconception and that the human body when dissected instead of being an object of disgust is as much more beautiful than any other piece of mechanism as it is more curious and wonderful After such lectures have been given those organs which are capable of being preserved for example the heart the kidney &c &c to be prepared in whatever manner may be conceived to render their preservation the most perfect and durable And finally when all the soft parts have been disposed of the bones are to be formed into a skeleton which after the head prepared in the manner already stated has been attached to it is to be dressed in the clothes usually worn by Mr Bentham & in this manner to be perpetually preserved—April 13 1830 Read the above Neither the said Doctor Smith nor any other person being present Read over & approved Witness my hand—JEREMY BENTHAM—To my executor accordingly whoever he may be it is strict injunction that as soon as ever the fact of my death is ascertained he shall take whatever measures may be necessary for the placing of my body with all practicable promptitude in the hands of the said Dr Smith or in the event of his absence from London in the hands of any person whom he may have appointed for that purpose and that accordingly my body shall be conveyed to his house wherever it may be At present it is in Broad Street City of London to this my bequest I hope no member of my family will make any opposition Should any such opposition be made I charge my executor and enjoin him by all the affection he feels for me not to pay any regard for it—J.B.— The witnesses duly testified to the authenticity of both the will and the paper annexed to it on 13 June 1832. Bentham had died on 6 June, and three days later Southwood Smith had carried out his friend’s instructions, delivering an oration over the corpse at the Webb Street School of Anatomy and Medicine.16 The printed oration forms a pamphlet of seventy-three pages, with a frontispiece showing the dead man lying on a table, the body being partly covered by a sheet; the plate was lithographed by Weld Taylor from a drawing by Henry Pickersgill. The story of the occasion has been told by several of those present; it took place during a heavy thunderstorm, with lightening flashing through the gloom. Southwood Smith delivered the lecture ‘with a clear unfaltering voice, but with a face as white as that of the dead philosopher before him’, to quote William Munk, 17 who, in his notice of Southwood Smith in the Roll of the Royal College of Physicians of London, has printed a letter received by him from Southwood Smith, dated 14 June 1857: Jeremy Bentham left by will his body to me for dissection. I was also to deliver a public lecture over his body to medical students and the public generally. The latter was done at the Webb-street school; Brougham, James Mill, Grote, and many other disciples of Bentham being present. After the usual anatomical demonstrations on the body, a skeleton was made of the bones. I endeavoured to preserve the head untouched, merely drawing away the fluids by placing it under an air pump over sulphuric acid. By this means the head was rendered as hard as the skulls of the New Zealanders; but all expression was of course gone. Seeing this would not do for exhibition, I had a model made in wax by a distinguished French artist taken from David's bust,18 Pickersgill's picture,19 and my own ring.20 The artist succeeded in producing one of the most admirable likenesses ever seen. I then had the skeleton stuffed out to fit Bentham's own clothes, and this wax likeness fitted to the trunk. This figure was placed seated in the chair on which he usually sat; and one hand holding the walking stick which was his constant companion when he was out, called by him Dapple. The whole was enclosed in a mahogany case with folding glass doors. When I removed from Finsbury Square I had no room large enough to hold the case. I therefore gave it to University college, where it now is. Any one may see it who enquires there for it, but no publicity is given to the fact that Bentham reposes there in some back room. The authorities seem to be afraid or ashamed to own their possession. After the lectures were delivered Southwood Smith followed his instructions as he relates in his letter. This task seems to have taken some months as is seen from a letter 21 sent by him to Mrs. Bowring, wife of Bentham’s executor: My Dear Mrs Bowring, Can you tell me if there be enough of Mr. Benthams hair to be put on the wax model of his head which has been made for the purpose of covering his own in the skeleton. If there be enough & you can procure it will you be so good as to send it to Dr. Talrich at Mr. Alexanders22 French Bookseller Great Russell St as the head is now ready, & the hair is wanted. If it be necessary to consult Dr. Bowring23 about it will you be good enough to write to him & beg him to return as [sic] answer as speedily as he can
This letter also enables us to identify with reasonable certainty the maker of the wax head. The ‘distinguished French artist’ was Jacques Talrich (d. 1851),24 a medical man who turned to anatomical modelling after military and general medical practice. His models in wax and in plastic materials found their way to museums in Britain, Germany, Russia and the United States, as well as in France, where he was modeller to the Paris School of Medicine. A twenty-page catalogue of models prepared for the Exposition Universelle of 1855 by his son Jules Talrich25 covers not only normal and pathological anatomy but also comparative anatomy and natural history specimens. Jacques Talrich first came to England in 1830, his models being acquired by anatomical museums in London, Birmingham, Edinburgh and Dublin. He would have been only too ready to have carried out the commission for this celebrated citizen of France (Bentham had recorded his vote for Napoleon26). It seems that the case with Bentham's body now rested in New Broad Street; Southwood Smith did not remove to 38 Finsbury Square until several years later. Bentham must have been seen by many visitors, including Charles Dickens. Una Pope-Hennessy27 relates that the latter used to dine with Southwood Smith, the two having become acquainted through their mutual devotion to the improvement of social conditions in East London. That the meetings anticipated by Bentham in his will did in fact take place is also known. One sneering reference is to be found in the Church Magazine for December 1841, in a memoir of the Rev. J. F. Colls, 28 described by the writer as being once adopted by Bentham, but referred to by Wallas29 as Bentham’s amanuensis. This account describes Bentham dressed in his own clothes, ‘placed at their Board of Green Cloth30 . . . in order, we presume, that these Utilitarians may likewise cheat themselves into the belief that the father of their sect, “though dead, yet speaketh”’. Southwood Smith gave up his consulting rooms in Finsbury Square in the winter of 1849–50. The events which resulted in the transfer of Bentham to the College are revealed in the College Council Minutes2a for 23 March 1850, as follows: Saturday 23rd
March 1850
As Lord Brougham's letter shows, Southwood Smith had already removed the case and its contents from Finsbury Square. The Post Office London Directory for 1850 confirms that ‘Miss Gillies’ was Margaret Gillies (1803–1887) the miniature and water-colour painter, an intimate friend of Southwood Smith. No further record of the arrival can be found, and there seems to be no clue as to the whereabouts of the case in the College. In his edition of Bentham’s A fragment on government, 1891, F. C. Montague33 wrote: ‘Bentham was not buried. Agreeably to his wish his body was embalmed and presented to University College London. There it still remains, although it has long been screened from the eyes of the public.’ This inaccurate remark shows that for many years the case was in a secluded spot. However, before long it was to be found in the Anatomical Museum. In 1898 Professor (later Sir) George Thane and the Curator of the Museum, T. W. P. Lawrence,34 made an examination of the figure, and a copy of their report survives: January 3, 1898 We opened the case containing the figure of Jeremy Bentham, and took out the latter. It was rather dusty, but not very much so. The clothes were much moth eaten, especially the undervest, and if taken off it would probably have been impossible to get the last on again. We undid the clothes, and found that they were stuffed with hay and tow, around the skeleton, which had been macerated and skilfully articulated. Both hands are present inside the gloves—the feet were not examined. In place of the head is a wax bust, which is supported on an iron spike. The head was found, wrapped in cloth saturated with some bituminous or tarry substance (a sort of tarpaulin) and then in paper, making a parcel, in the cavity of the trunk-skeleton, being fastened by strong wire running from the ribs to the vertebral column. On unpacking this the head itself was found to be mummified, dried, and prepared, by clearing any suboccipital soft parts, so that it looks not unlike a New Zealand head. In the sockets are glass eyes.35 The atlas, which had been macerated, is fastened in its natural place below the occipital bone. At the top of the head is a small hole in the skull, where the tip of the spike had doubtless come through, and round the hole is an impression formed by a circular washer and nut which had fitted the screw on the end of the spike, and by which the head was formerly fixed on the trunk. The face is clean shaved—hair scanty, grey and long. (Signed) T. W. P. LAWRENCE and G. D. T. In 1906 Rickman Godlee37 spoke of Jeremy Bentham ‘in the gallery of the anatomical museum’, a place where he was kept until the College Centenary in 1926, when he passed into the custody of the Library. In 1939 he was carefully examined and restored, together with his clothes, chair and stick, in the Department of Egyptology by the Museum Curator, Miss Violette Lafleur,38assisted in the examination of the skeleton by Dr. Una Fielding of the Department of Anatomy. The clothes were found to be very dirty and moth-eaten, but apart from the vest they were successfully cleaned by a leading firm of cleaners and dyers, and treated with paradichlorbenzene as a preservative against moths. The vest was replaced by one presented by Dr. G. R. Lomer, the Librarian of McGill University; the padding for the skeleton was also renewed. The original padding (of cotton wool, wood wool, straw, hay and paper ribbon, with a bunch of lavender and a bag of naphthalene at the base of the ribs) had been crudely done and was out of proportion to the size of the frame. The figure was therefore reconstructed with a padding of tow to contour measurements supplied by Dr. Fielding. The skeleton was found to be in excellent condition; it was noted that the coccyx had been replaced by an artificial one. A deposit at the joints of the bones was treated; it was apparently copper carbonate from the wire used in the articulation. At the outbreak of war in 1939 he was at first placed in the Cloisters, buried in piles of books awaiting removal, and then transferred to the temporary College administrative quarters at Stanstead Bury, Stanstead Abbotts, near Ware. With the cessation of hostilities he returned to Gower Street, and after a sojourn in the Professors’ Common Room he now sits at the south end of the Cloisters, in the South Junction. While he is still in the original case, this has been enclosed by a more elaborate but dignified one bearing his name in ‘conspicuous characters’, although not, as he directed, ‘ob. June 6, 1832’. Though the foregoing paragraphs have disproved the assertion that Jeremy Bentham left his body to the College they do not alter the fact that the institution owed much to him, both in its foundation and in its first years of a struggle for existence. The late C. K. Ogden,39 in his Bentham Centenary Lecture, 1932, ably and eloquently demonstrated that. And as a former Provost, Sir David Pye,40 observed at the bicentenary of Bentham's birth in 1948: nowhere is the memory of Jeremy Bentham more cherished nor his influence more lively to-day then here in University College. For although he was not himself our Founder, it was undoubtedly Bentham who inspired the group of young men, Thomas Campbell, Henry Brougham and others, who were responsible for the foundation of a University in London which was to be free from the ecclesiastical traditions of the older universities; and in which higher education would be available for all who would profit by it, regardless of tests on grounds of religion, politics, race or colour. What was founded then was in fact University College, and it is therefore proper that Bentham’s bones in the form of his so-called Auto-ikon should rest with us. . . . ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is with much pleasure that I acknowledge my indebtedness to Mr. J. W. Scott, Librarian of the College for his keen interest and helpful advice, to Miss Margaret Skerl for References 28 and 36, to Dr. F. N. L. Poynter for Reference 27 and for the portrait of Southwood Smith. I am also grateful to University College, London, for permission to publish extracts from official records and from the Bentham MSS., and to reproduce Figures 3, 4; also to the Sport and General Press Agency for permission to reproduce Figure 2. REFERENCE * This article first appeared in Medical History, Vol. II, No. 2, April 1958, pp.77-86. © The Trustee of the Wellcome Trust. It is reproduced here with the kind permission of the current editors. (8.4.2002) 1 See letter from Southwood Smith to William Munk However, Bentham's executor, John Bowring, refers to the stick in one place as ‘Dobbin’ (‘Memoirs of Bentham’, in Works of Jeremy Bentham, 1843, x, 600) , and in another place as ‘Dapple’ (op.cit., xi, 80). 2UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON, Minutes of the Proceedings of the Council,2a . 23 March 1850. Manuscript in Records Department, U.C.L. 3LEWENZ, M. A., and PEARSON, K., ‘On the measurement of internal capacity from cranial circumference’, Biometrika, 1904, iii, 366–97. 4BELLOT, H. HALE, University College, London, 1826–1926, London, University of London Press, 1929, p. 25. 5SMITH, T. SOUTHWOOD, A lecture delivered over the remains of Jeremy Bentham, Esq. . . .. on the 9th of June, 1832, London, Effingham Wilson, 1832, p. 4. 6SMITH, T. SOUTHWOOD, Use of the dead to the living, various editions: Albany, Websters & Skinners, 1827; London, Baldwin & Cradock, 1828; 3rd ed., London, C. Adlard, 1832. 7BOWRING, Sir John, Autobiographical Recollections, London, H. S. King, 1877, p. 343. 8BENTHAM, J., Auto-Icon: or, Farther uses of the dead to the living. A fragment. From the MSS. of Jeremy Bentham. [Not published.] [1842?] 9Notes and Queries, 4th ser., 1873, xii, 387. 10BENTHAM, J., The Works of Jeremy Bentham, published under the superintendence of his executor, John Bowring,11 vols., Edinburgh, William Tait, London, Simpkin, Marshall, 1842 (also issued in parts, 1838–43). 11BOWRING, Sir JOHN, op.cit., p. 339. 12 The Library, 5th ser., 1946, i, 6. 13Bowring presented 174 parcels and cases of Bentham’s papers to the College on 31 January 1849. A catalogue of these, by A. Taylor Milne, was published by the College in 1937. 14[BENTHAM, J.] 1820 June 26/Auto-Icon, single folio MS. sheet in Bentham MSS. Box 149, U.C. Library. 15BENTHAM, J. Certified typescript copy made 18 April 1928 of the original will in Somerset House; in Bentham MSS. Box 155, U.C. Library. 16The British Museum possesses a printed invitation to the lecture, bound up with some letters from Bentham to John Tyrrell, one of the recipients of a ring under the terms of Bentham’s will. It reads: 'Sir, It was the earnest
desire of the late jeremy bentham that his Body should be appropriated to
an illustration of the Structure and Functions of the Human Frame. In compliance
with this wish, Dr. Southwood Smith will deliver a Lecture, over the Body,
on the Usefulness of Knowledge of this kind to the Community. The Lecture
will be delivered at the Webb-Street School of Anatomy and Medicine, Webb-Street,
Borough, Tomorrow, at Three o’Clock, at which the honour of your presence,
and that of any two friends who may wish to accompany you, is requested. 17MUNK, W., The Roll of the Royal College of Physicians of London, 2nd ed., 3 vols., London, the College, 1878, ii, p. 237. 18Executed in 1828 by P. J. David d'Angers. The original bust is now in the Library at Senate House (the University of London); a bronze replica was acquired by University College in 1932 is now in the students’ hostel, Bentham Hall. 19Henry Pickersgill, the portrait painter, had painted Bentham’s portrait during the latter's lifetime. 20In his will Jeremy Bentham left a ring bearing his effigy to each of twenty-four people named by him. Two of these rings (those given to Edwin Chadwick and John Tyrrell) are in the possession of the College; it is said that the miniature portrait in each was painted with Bentham's hair, following the fashion of the time. Mr. L. J. Gue has kindly pointed out that in 1933 the College received from Mr. Wilfrid Bowring a pair of spectacles and a ring, both worn by Bentham in his old age. All these objects are displayed in Bentham's case. 21SMITH, T. SOUTHWOOD holograph letter to Mrs. Bowring, dated 3 March 1833, in Bentham MSS. Box 173, U.C. Library. 22A. Alexander, importer of French books, carried on his business at 37 Great Russell Street, opposite the British Museum. 23Sir John Bowring, f.r.s. (1792–1872), Bentham’s executor, had received the degree of ll.d. from Groningen in 1829. He edited the collected works of Bentham. 24Not ‘Mr. Talrych’ as quoted by Ogden39 from the inscription on the inside of the door of the case containing Bentham. 25TALRICH, JULES, Catalogue de préparations anatomiques normales et pathologiques en cire et plastique, &c., Paris, 1861. With obituary notice of Dr. Jacques Talrich, p. (3). 26BENTHAM, J., The Works, &c., 1843, x, p. 389. 27POPE-HENNESSY, Una, Charles Dickens, 1812–1870, London, Reprint Society, 1947, pp. 108–9. 28‘Memoir of the Rev. J. F. Colls, b.d., &c.’ The Church Magazine, 1841, iii, 369. 29WALLAS, G., The Life of Francis Place, 1771–1854, 3rd ed., London, Allen & Unwin 1951, p. 76. 30This reference may be explained by a remark made by Bentham, with a bracketed note by Bowring:31 'Look at that table (a board covered with green curtain, on which Bentham was accustomed to pin the fragments which represented the leading principles of his writings) . . . .' 31BENTHAM, J., The Works, &c., 1843, xi, p. 30. 32Charles C. Atkinson, secretary to the Council. 33BENTHAM, J., A fragment on government. Edited . . . by F. C. Montague, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1891, p. 14. 34LAWRENCE, T. W. P., and THANE, G. D., Note on examination of effigy of Jeremy Bentham . . . January 3, 1898. Typescript copy in U.C. Library. 35William Empson (1791–1852)36 in an unsigned, lengthy and critical review of the ‘Memoirs of Bentham’ (Works, vols. x, xi) makes a curious reference to the eyes, which does not appear to have been mentioned by Bentham’s friends. It is in a fanciful vein, thus: 'The image of Bentham almost superintending the stuffing of his own body; entertaining his visitors by taking out of his pocket the eyes which were to adorn it, and pleasing his fancy with the part he was to take, (a silent guest), with Dapple in his hand, at the great utilitarian festival on Founder's day. . . .' 36Edinburgh Review, 1843, lxxviii, 515. 37GODLEE, Sir RICKMAN J., The past, present and future of the School for Advanced Medical Studies of University College, London, &c., London, J. Bale, 1907, pp. 4–5. 38LAFLEUR, VIOLETTE C., Interim report on Jeremy Bentham, February 27th, 1939. Typescript, with covering letter from Professor S. R. K. Glanville dated 22 June 1939, in Records Department, U.C.L. 39OGDEN, C. K., Jeremy Bentham 1832–2032. Being the Bentham Centenary Lecture . . . June 6th, 1932, London, Kegan Paul, 1932. 40UNIVERSITY COLLEGE, LONDON, Jeremy Bentham. Bicentenary Celebrations. Tuesday 8 June 1948, London, H. K. Lewis, 1948, p. vii This page last modified 2 April, 2009 by [Irena Nicoll] |
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