Jeremy Bentham, the Panopticon penitentiary scheme, and ‘A Picture of the Treasury’
The Conference is generously supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council.
Jeremy Bentham, the Panopticon penitentiary scheme, and ‘A Picture of the Treasury’
23 Jul 2025 - 24 Jul 2025
Jeremy Bentham, the Panopticon penitentiary scheme, and ‘A Picture of the Treasury’ Conference
Call for Paper Proposals
The Bentham Project is hosting a two-day conference entitled ‘Jeremy Bentham, the Panopticon penitentiary scheme, and “A Picture of the Treasury”’, which will take place at Bentham House, Faculty of Laws, University College London, on 23 and 24 July 2025.
The aim of the conference is to discuss the forthcoming critical edition of ‘A Picture of the Treasury’ in The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham (UCL Press), publishing for the first time Bentham’s personal account of his dealings with the government, most notably the Treasury department, but also the Home Office, in his attempts to erect, and to become governor of, a panopticon penitentiary.
‘A Picture of the Treasury’ (written in 1802) contains Bentham’s highly detailed reflections on his dealings with and treatment by government officials between 1798 and 1802, and gives a unique insight into how he felt at this time. He exposes the individuals by whom, and administrative processes and malpractices by which, he believed his interests, and the public interest at large, had been thwarted. Bentham states, for instance, that his ‘adversary’, the British government, had all along sought to abandon the panopticon scheme by making things so drawn out that he might have been ‘provoked … beyond endurance’, give up through ‘weariness and despondency’, or simply die—die either ‘in the natural way of things’, as a result of ‘wear and tear of vexations and disappointments’, or even by him being driven to suicide.
The text consists of twenty-four sections, which are interspersed with over one hundred pieces of documentary evidence, including letters sent and unsent, extracts from official documents and third-party correspondence, alongside Bentham’s own commentary, all of which, Bentham says, might serve in prompting people to ask, ‘Well—and when this came out—what were your feelings?—and how did you endure it?’
Prior to the conference, a pre-publication version of ‘A Picture of the Treasury’ will be made available online for speakers and guests in order to facilitate discussion. For a draft table of contents for ‘Picture’, please see below on the accordion container.
In order to facilitate discussion, a pre-publication version of ‘A Picture of the Treasury’ has been made available online for speakers and guests as a .pdf.
We look forward to welcoming you to the conference!
Dr Tim Causer, Principal Research Fellow, UCL Faculty of Laws
Dr Chris Riley, Research Fellow, UCL Faculty of Laws
Speakers:
- Anne Brunon-Ernst, Panthéon-Assas University, Paris.
- Mark Knights, University of Warwick.
- Carrie Shanafelt, Yeshiva University, New York.
- Malcolm Quinn, University of the Arts London.
Table of Contents
§ 1. Purchase of Ld Salisbury’s on the proposal of Mr Long.
History Of the purchase made of the estate of the Marquis of Salisbury at Milbank, Westminster for the alledged purpose of a National Penitentiary Establishment: and of the causes which have hitherto prevented the application of it to that use: addressed to The Right Honble the Ld Pelham, his Majesty’s Secretary of State for the Home Department.
§ 2. Secret Plan for Rendering the Purchase Useless.
§ 3. Clandestine and perfidious assurance to Ld Belgrave.
§ 4. Symptoms of earlier treachery—Tergiversations of Mr Rose.
§ 5. Breach of faith 1st. Previous Contract.
§ 6. Breach of faith 2d. Buying out Leases.
§ 7. Breach of faith 3d. Mr Wise’s Land.
§ 8. The Establishment encreased, to make a pretence for crushing it.
§ 9. Further Intercourse forbidden by Mr Long.
§ 10. Armed Memorial, and its consequences.
§ 11. Disarmed Memorial, and its consequences.
§ 12. Negotiation of Mr Nepean alone with Messrs Long and King.
§ 13. Anonymous Report to the House of Commons.
§ 14. Secret blabbed by King.
§ 15. Change of Ministry—Insidious Letter.
§ 16. Secret Minutes brought to light—Grounds of relinquishment.
§ [16A.] Grounds of Relinquishment—Jail Improvements.
[§ 17. Offer of Compensation.]
§ [18.] Difference between Suppression of Documents & Forgery.
§ 19. Perfidy.
§ [20.] On the Dispensing power exercised by the Duke of Portland and his confederates.
§ 21. Principles of Waste and Peculation.
§ 22. Official Incapacity.
§ 23. Killing no Murder.
§ 24. Anarchy and Despotism.
Programme
Wednesday 23 July
09:30–10:00 | Registration and coffee (Cissy Chu Common Room) |
| 10:00–11:00 | Invited Speaker: Anne Brunon-Ernst (Université Paris Panthéon-Assas et Centre Bentham), ‘“Assurance of being able to purchase land”: From A Picture of the Treasury to Colonization Company Proposal.’ |
| 11:00–11:30 | Coffee Break (Cissy Chu Common Room) |
| 11:30–13:00 | —Philip Schofield, ‘The Plot of Bentham’s Narrative’. —Chris Riley, ‘“I have its picture to paint with its own pen and in its own colours. I owe it to posterity”: a personal history of a public ‘mischief’, Jeremy Bentham’s A Picture of the Treasury.’ —Roger Morriss, ‘Jeremy’s Counselling. The Fraternal Advice of Samuel Bentham and Charles Abbot that failed to avert “A Picture of the Treasury”’. |
| 13:00–14:00 | Lunch (Cissy Chu Common Room)
|
14:00–15:00 | Invited Speaker: Mark Knights (The University of Warwick), ‘Bentham and the Contexts of Administrative Reform in later Georgian Britain’. |
| 15:00–15:30 | Coffee Break (Cissy Chu Common Room) |
| 15:30–16:30 | —Emily Lanman, ‘Panopticons in the Antipodes: Why Bentham’s Reforms found Success in Western Australia’. —Simon Devereaux, ‘Not Forgotten? The Penitentiary Project before the Panopticon, 1779–92’. |
16:30 | Day 1 close |
18:00 | Dinner (optional for those who have booked) |
Thursday 24 July
09:30–10:00 | Registration and Coffee (Cissy Chu Common Room) |
10:00–11:00 | Invited Speaker: Carrie Shanafelt (Yeshiva University, New York), ‘Jeremy Bentham Meets the Unaccountability Machine’. |
11:00–11:30 | Coffee Break (Cissy Chu Common Room) |
11:30–12:30 | —Carolyn Shapiro, ‘Bentham’s prospective illustrations for a National Penitentiary: the psychic topography of the “Contractor manqué”’. —Matt Allen, ‘The “Formidable Inspector”: Visual Metaphors and the Critique of Governmental Corruption in “A Picture of the Treasury”’. |
12:30–13:30 | Lunch (Cissy Chu Common Room) |
13:30–14:30 | Invited Speaker: Malcolm Quinn (University of the Arts, London), ‘What is a Utilitarian Portrait?’ |
14:30–15:00 | Coffee Break (Cissy Chu Common Room) |
15:00–16:00 | —Joanna Innes, ‘George Rose and Bentham: Context for their Interactions over the Panopticon’. —Greg Cote, ‘The Panopticon: A Democratic Artifact of Technology’. |
16:00–16:10 | Closing Remarks: Philip Schofield Conference close |
Fees and Booking
Fees
Standard ticket (2 days): £64.76
Standard ticket (1 day): £32.68
Student/Unwaged ticket (2 days): £43.37
Student/Unwaged ticket (1 day): £21.98
Further information
Ticketing
Ticketed and Pre-booking essential
Cost
Free
Open to
All