Death Wish

Jeremy Bentham (1748 -1832), the English Utilitarian philosopher, had very decided views on what should happen to bodies after death. He even wrote a book on the subject - “Auto-Icon, or the Uses of the Dead to the Living” - in which he suggested that “if all bodies were embalmed every man might be his own statue”. Bentham, who had been one of the founders of University College, London, bequeathed his body to the college so that it could be used for medical research. Interpreting Bentham's will in the widest sense, the college authorities dressed the carefully preserved corpse in a suit of Bentham's best clothes and placed it in a glass case. Thus, for many years the deceased Bentham presided over meetings of the college committee - and was always described in the minutes as ‘present, but not voting’.