Jeremy Bentham was an interesting man.

 A renowned philosopher and the father of utilitarianism, he introduced the world to the idea of “greatest happiness principle”. With the happiness principle, he argued that good is defined as that which produces the greatest amount of pleasure and the minimum amount of pain. In other words, humans, as moral creatures, must always consider the impact our actions will have on other people. He referred to this process by the rather baffling scientific name of “hedonic” or “felicific calculus”. This, in a time (he lived from 1748 to 1832) when people were just emerging from the long shadow of feudalism.

 Bentham was also a champion of women’s rights, animal rights, and lobbied for gay rights at a time when homosexuality was still a crime in England.

 When he died at eighty-four, he had lived a very long, accomplished life. But it was nothing compared to what happened to Jeremy Bentham’s after his death...

You see, Bentham didn’t think dying should slow him down. In his will, he stipulated that his body be donated to science for dissection (he strove to contribute to the greatest good, even in death) then permanently preserved as an “auto icon” at University College London (UCL).

And that’s where he’s been in the one hundred and eighty-six years since his death.

But Bentham wasn’t content just to sit around in a box. His will also requested that he be brought out from time to time.

 “If it should so happen that my personal friends and other disciples should be disposed to meet together...my executor will from time-to-time cause to be conveyed in the room in which they meet the said box or case with the contents therein, to be stationed in such part of the room as to the assembled company shall seem meet.”

 Yes, you heard it right. Jeremy Bentham wanted his corpse to be rolled out for special occasions. To take part in debates and the committee meetings that gave his life meaning. And the university accommodated him. Not all the arrangements went well. His head was so poorly preserved that they had to replace it with a wax replica.

But he still stands as a silent sentinel in the halls of the university, where, as author Hayley Campbell observed, “students nearby pay him as much attention as they would a piece of furniture.”

Interesting fact: Jeremy Bentham isn’t the only body on public display in England. The skeleton of the serial killer William Burke was mounted after his execution and can be found at the Anatomical Museum at the University of Edinburgh. His crime? Killing people and then selling their bodies to medical schools.