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Councillor Catherine Longworth, Lord Mayor of Westminster and Professor Malcolm Grant, the President and Provost of UCL, unveiled a commemorative plaque to Jeremy Bentham on the gateway of the Home Office building at 50 Queen Anne's Gate on 12th October 2004.
Short speeches before the unveiling were made by Professor Philip Schofield (left), Director of the Bentham Project, Professor Malcolm Grant (centre left), Provost of UCL, Mr John Longworth (centre right, Lord Mayor's consort who did not speak at the unveiling) and Councillor Catherine Longworth, Lord Mayor of Westminster.
For the text of Professor Schofield's speech click here.
Guests listening to the speeches outside the Home Office at the plaque unveiling ceremony.
Bentham lived for forty years in a house on the site now occupied by the Home Office.The house, in what came to be called Queen's Square Place, was bequeathed to Bentham by his father Jeremiah on his death in 1792. Jeremiah had first rented the house in May 1763 while Jeremy was a fifteen year old undergraduate at Oxford. Jeremy's first comment on the family's move from Crutched Friars in the City, comes in a letter written from Queen's College Oxford to his father on 24 March 1763:
| I received the favour of yours on Friday, and am very glad to find by it, that you are likely to suit yourself with a house so much to your liking; for my part, from the description you give me, and the idea I have of it, I really think it must be very pleasant and convenient; I should be glad to hear that you have taken it, of which I can only draw a probable conclusion from your data, as you have not expressly mentioned it |
The house proved convenient for Jeremiah bought it at the end of 1764.