Bentham's bonce

[oursin]

Further to extensive discussions on my last post about JB's auto-icon.

I'm pretty sure that the actual head has been photoshopped in to the image I posted, because last I heard it was kept in a vault at UCL (in fact, I think somewhere in the archive store) because, not only did it rapidly demonstrate the limitations of Victorian mummification techniques and become extremely grotesque, sometime during the 1980s it became infested with carpet-beetle and had to undergo extensive and specialised conservation treatment.

(And everyone will be getting Bentham keyrings from me for Christmas, hmmmm?)

ETA MI BENTHAM LOLTHEORISTZ, LET ME SHOW U THEM (from my mad lol-thing phase last summer).

Comments

[thera-flu.livejournal.com]

I didn't read the extensive discussions, but I'll add what I've heard: the head was damaged extensively during the original mummification and used to be in a box at his feet until it was stolen during the hijinx of the 80s. Now it is kept in a vault. (This from the UCL tour guide 2 years ago.)

[thera-flu.livejournal.com]

I like the carpet beetle phenomenon much better. And the notion that his friends wouldn't dissect him. Who does that kind of conservation, anway?

[oursin.livejournal.com]

Museum people who inherit e.g. large collections of badly preserved C19th taxidermy specimens, I should think. Or Colonel X's collection of shrunken heads he picked up while in Borneo.

I suspect that it may be the conservation staff from the Museum of Mankind or the Pitt-Rivers moonlighting.

[thera-flu.livejournal.com]

It makes sense now that you say it. And I love the idea of the Pitt-Rivers moonlighting. And someone had to restore some of those Victorian cats that were at the V&A a while ago, right?

I know so little about 19th century medicine, taxonomy, etc, it's scary. There are taboos in place that the 17th century practitioners I read about would have scoffed at. And vice versa, I suppose.

[wolfinthewood.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty sure that the actual head has been photoshopped in to the image I posted

I am relieved to hear that.

When I was at school in the sixties we used to be herded up to London every year for the annual Greek and Latin Reading Competition which was held at University College. I remember queuing up under the eye of this strange little figure and being told that this was Jeremy Bentham, and that - blink - it was not just a wax effigy but his preserved body. I was more intrigued than horrified.

There is a non-Photoshopped image here (http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Bentham-Project/info/auto-iconhtm.htm), without the gruesome head.

[liadnan]

We (I was at UCL in the early 90s) were always told that the actual head had been damaged when Kings stole it and used it as a football. That does seem to be a recorded legend, though my recollection was that it was supposed to have happened in the 20s: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/Bentham-Project/info/jb.htm .

(Mainly KIngs went for Phineas, the Union mascot. People once sought to persuade me to get involved in a plot to steal Reggie the King's Lion (again) but I declined, pointing out that by then it was filled with concrete.)

[gmh.livejournal.com]

I heard exactly the same thing as you, but then, I was also at UCL in the early '90s, so this is not terribly surprising.

If I also remember, UCL Union in the late '60s tried to stop the regular thefts of Phineas by adopting a new Union mascot - the Post Office Tower - and inviting rival institutions to steal that instead.

[serrana.livejournal.com]

No, no, they can't have Photoshopped it twice (http://www.michealfelker.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/bentham.JPG), can they?

(*snerk* "Extensive discussions." You're so diplomatic. ;> )

And, in re. who does it -- yep, I'd vote for conservationists who deal with anthropological specimens. You see a lot of bits of dead folks in the basement of the anthropology museum...(I am still bemused by the UCL hierarchy deciding not to display the head because it's disrespectful to human remains. But having the rest of his corpse sitting there is JUST FINE.)

[livinglaurel.livejournal.com]

(We're not banned for life? SCORE)

(I am still bemused by the UCL hierarchy deciding not to display the head because it's disrespectful to human remains. But having the rest of his corpse sitting there is JUST FINE.)

I KNOW
I KNOW

THE REMAINS OF HIS REMAINS ARE SITTING RIGHT THERE, UCL
HEADLESSLY

[serrana.livejournal.com]

(Well, not yet, anyway.)

Human remains: totally respectful, as long as they're decently clothed. And not infested with beetles.

[livinglaurel.livejournal.com]

....I misread 'respectful' as 'respectable' and was going to make a crack about conventionality....

[oursin.livejournal.com]

That looks like a fairly old photo - though I thought the head was kept in a box rather than out in the open.

I think the 'disrespectful' thing might come from the whole 'Kings College keep nicking it and using it as a football' element. (Which, when you think that Kings was founded specifically as a rebuke to the Godless Institution of Gower St and was all about subscribing to the 39 articles - Dissenters? Atheists? Utilitarians? Jews? DO. NOT. WANT. - is really not the way round one would expect it to be.)

[serrana.livejournal.com]

I think the box was post-1930s.

Really, we need to work up a Jeremy Bentham's head timeline.

oh you knew I was going to make this joke

[livinglaurel.livejournal.com]

....'HIZ HED IS PASTED ON YAY'?

Extensive discussions! Aww, that makes it sound like I wasn't on crack!


ETA Oh, the LOLitarian ones are marvelous.