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Secondary sourcePhotograph27 November 2017

Visitors paying respects to Bentham's auto-icon

Rictor Norton & David Allen · 27 November 2017

A 2017 photograph of two visitors standing beside Jeremy Bentham's auto-icon, a seated figure in clothing with a wax head. It shows the memorial still being visited.

Shows visitors with Bentham's auto-icon, which is his preserved body, and a panopticon plan, linking the memorial to his prison reform ideas.

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Two men stand either side of an open wooden cabinet displaying Jeremy Bentham's auto-icon, a seated figure dressed in a hat, jacket and waistcoat with a wax head. The left man wears a black jacket and glasses; the right man wears a quilted navy jacket.
Rictor Norton and David Allen, visitors with Jeremy Bentham's auto-icon, 27 November 2017.

About this source

What it is

This photograph, taken by Rictor Norton and David Allen on 27 November 2017, shows two men standing on either side of an open wooden cabinet. Inside is Jeremy Bentham's auto-icon: a seated figure in a hat, jacket and waistcoat with a wax head. The photo's note says the visitors are paying their respects, and a plan for the panopticon prison is just visible on the left.

Why it matters

The auto-icon is described in the record as a model made of Bentham's own bones. Visits like this show that the memorial still draws people more than a century and a half after his death in 1832. The panopticon plan links the display to Bentham's ideas about prisons.

Look closer

  • What do the visitors' poses and clothing suggest about how they regard the figure?
  • What does the photo not show about Bentham's life and ideas beyond this display?

This photograph is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Jeremy Bentham on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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Title page of An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation. Text reads: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE PRINCIPLES OF MORALS AND LEGISLATION, printed in the year 1780 and now first published, by Jeremy Bentham, of Lincoln's Inn, Esquire. London: printed for T. Payne and Son, at the Mews Gate, MDCCLXXXIX.Book

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Jeremy Bentham · 1789 (printed 1780)

Title page of Jeremy Bentham's 'Panopticon; or, The Inspection-House' (1791), showing the title, subtitle listing penitentiary houses and schools, author 'By Jeremy Bentham, of Lincoln's Inn, Esquire', and imprint 'Dublin, Printed; London, reprinted; and sold by T. Payne, at the Mews Gate. 1791'.Book

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Jeremy Bentham · 1791 (letters written 1787)

Wooden cabinet case with gold lettering reading JEREMY BENTHAM, its doors open, containing a seated figure dressed in black coat, white cravat, grey trousers and a straw hat, with a wax head. The display is in a tiled hallway.Artifact

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Thomas Southwood Smith · 1832

Dark blue cloth book cover with a white rectangular library label on the left spine area reading Trinity College Library, with a barcode and number 31761 02710574 1 printed vertically.Book

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A Fragment on Government

Jeremy Bentham · 1776

Full-length oil portrait of an elderly man with long white hair, seated in a carved wooden armchair in a dark brown fur-trimmed robe over a white shirt. A table at left holds leather-bound books, an inkwell, papers, and a rolled document against a dark background.Painting

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Henry William Pickersgill · c. 1829

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