A dead man attended a board meeting this week much to the delight of office workers.
The dead man was philosopher Jeremy Bentham who died 181 years ago. Bentham was the ‘spiritual founder’ of University College London.
Bentham requested that when he died his body should be preserved and dressed in his own clothes. He can usually be found sitting on display in one of the University’s corridors.
But this week his remarkably well preserved body was removed from his display to sit in attendance at a council meeting at the university to mark the retirement of provost Sir Malcolm Grant.
Bentham, was a political radical and regarded as the founder of utilitarianism. He advocated equal rights for women, the decriminalising of homosexual acts and the abolition of slavery.
