A hole at the top of Jeremy Bentham’s skull once held a metal rod that attached his head to a life-sized figure of his dressed skeleton. Nearly 200 years after the philosopher’s death, scans at University College London have revealed that detail—and much more—without anyone needing to handle the fragile remains.
Bentham, an 18th- and 19th-century philosopher and reformer, asked in his will for his body to be dissected and preserved as an “auto-icon,” a term he coined to mean “self-image.” He is thought to have been the first person on record to legally register not only consent to scientific use of his body, but an active preference for it. The new investigation, carried out as UCL marked its bicentennial year, offers a careful look at both his health and the choices made after his death.
Bentham died in 1832. Five days later, on June 11, surgeon Richard Grainger publicly dissected his body. Thomas Southwood Smith then created the auto-icon: Bentham’s skeleton dressed in his own clothes. Smith’s attempt to preserve the real head did not produce a result suitable for public display, so he commissioned a wax head instead. The real head is now kept in a secure conservation safe, while the auto-icon is part of UCL’s Science Collections.
An interdisciplinary team of UCL scientists, curators and Bentham scholars used CT scanning, a method that makes detailed images inside an object, and 3D modeling to study the head. The work was supported by the UCL Hawkes Institute and the university’s Department of Medical Physics and Biomedical Engineering. The scans showed severe damage to Bentham’s teeth and lower jaw, with arthritis that suggests he may have endured considerable pain. His own writing supports that picture. In an 1830 letter to Sir Robert Peel, he described having teeth pulled to escape “the enduring” pain of toothache.
The images also answered questions about how the head had been prepared. They confirmed that Bentham’s brain had been removed, though some of the dura mater—the tough outer layer around the brain—remained. An X-ray taken 10 years earlier had left researchers puzzled about this tissue. The scans further showed that the glass eyes placed in the head were carefully made, with anatomically shaped optic nerves.
For UCL, the project is also a way to care for a rare and fragile collection item. Tannis Davidson, head of Zoology and Science Collections at UCL’s Library, Culture, Collections and Open Science team, said the imaging helps staff document physical changes and protect important objects. Researchers also considered the ethics of studying human remains. Tim Causer of the Bentham Project said the work was not done “gratuitously” and that Bentham, who valued observation and experiment, would likely have supported it.
The scans enabled a physical 3D print of Bentham’s skull, and UCL says the data could eventually be shared so people can make their own prints for research, teaching and conservation. The images add new evidence about a thinker who helped lay the foundations for London’s first university—and show how modern tools can reveal history while helping preserve it.