Today is Dead Jeremy Bentham Day. The University College London [UCL] web site explains why such a day almost makes sense:
At the end of the South Cloisters of the main building of UCL stands a wooden cabinet, which has been a source of curiosity and perplexity to visitors.
The cabinet contains Bentham’s preserved skeleton, dressed in his own clothes, and surmounted by a wax head. [The photo here shows exactly that.] Bentham requested that his body be preserved in this way in his will made shortly before his death on 6 June 1832. The cabinet was moved to UCL in 1850.
Not surprisingly, this peculiar relic has given rise to numerous legends and anecdotes. One of the most commonly recounted is that the Auto-Icon regularly attends meetings of the College Council, and that it is solemnly wheeled into the Council Room to take its place among the present-day members. Its presence, it is claimed, is always recorded in the minutes with the words Jeremy Bentham – present but not voting. Another version of the story asserts that the Auto-Icon does vote, but only on occasions when the votes of the other Council members are equally split. In these cases the Auto-Icon invariably votes for the motion.
Bentham had originally intended that his head should be part of the Auto-Icon…
Other parts of the UCL site explain who Jeremy Bentham was, and what colorful things he said. This video from UCL gives an excruciatingly close, long look at Bentham’s head, what there is of it:
BONUS (possibly unrelated):