Present but Not Voting

At the outset I feel obliged to say that I am not making any of this up.

University College London has quite the interesting campus, with a mix of architectural styles in such a warren of buildings that I was never entirely sure how to get to anywhere but the DIS offices.  There's even one building, snug amongst several others, that if I recall correctly doesn't even belong to the college, even though it's on their grounds.  UCL has several collections in its main campus, including the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology and the Grant Museum of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy.  To me, though, those pale in comparison to UCL's oddest oddity.

Jeremy Bentham was a philosopher, most widely known for utilitarianism and the idea of the panopticon.  He invested the not insignificant sum of £100 in the university as it opened.  Had that been his only connection to UCL, it would hardly be worth mentioning; as it is, he still maintains a presence on campus.

Rather than a traditional burial, or even cremation, Bentham wanted his corpse to be dissected and then made into an 'auto-icon,' wishes his family and friends carried out upon his death.  Bentham's skeleton was mounted and dressed in his clothes, which were stuffed with straw.  All of this was topped with a false head.  Today Jeremy Bentham sits in a handsome wooden cabinet, fitted with a glass front and a pair of doors that can be closed at night, in the South Cloisters.  On occasion he leaves his box to attend important functions, like a celebration of the school's sesquicentennial in 1976, and a more recent dinner during the 2006 John Stuart Mill Bicentennial Conference.  Urban legend has it that at such meetings of the College Council Bentham is recorded as present but not voting.

Jeremy's real head was on display along with the rest of him for a while.  Unfortunately, it was once kidnapped by students of rival school Kings College, London, and held for ransom, and upon its return was secured in a vault.  (If you consult UCL's auto-icon page, be warned that clicking on the link titled 'Bentham's head' takes you to a page that includes a picture of his real head.  It's not something I would recommend.  You can, however, spin him around using the Virtual Auto-Icon.)  Given all this, I'm sure that in the event of a zombie apocalypse, Jeremy would not become one of the undead, since his head is already missing.

I waved to him every time we walked by.

To see the view from slightly above Jeremy's head, check out the Panopticam.