Tickets are now available for events two and three of Bentham in the Community!

Event two is an evening of talks on Monday May 16th about the City of London in the late eighteenth century and Bentham’s childhood there. Speakers include Professor Philip Schofield, Director of the Bentham Project, Dr Oliver Harris, Historian, and David Woosnam, a qualified City of London guide. Refreshments will be provided. The event is located at the Women’s Library on Old Castle Street near where Bentham was born. More information here.

Time: 7.30pm – 9pm.
Tickets are FREE OF CHARGE.

Event three is a Bentham walk around London on Monday May 23rd. Start at Westminster Abbey (Dean’s Yard at the Westminster Abbey Shop) at 7pm and visit where Bentham went to school, where he and his friends lived and worked, where he jogged  and more. The walk finishes at Bentham’s final resting place in UCL. Afterwards toast Jeremy at the Jeremy Bentham pub!

Time: 7pm-9pm

Tickets are FREE OF CHARGE.

Some tickets for these events have been reserved for members of London Historians. Members should contact Mike Paterson for more information.

The first of our three public events is taking place on May 12th in Bentham House at UCL and tickets are available now! The evening will consist of talks about Georgian London and Bentham’s contribution to the foundation of the University of London, later UCL, in 1826.

Speakers include:

Professor Philip Schofield, Director of the Bentham Project

Lucy Inglis, award-winning Georgian London blogger

Mike Paterson, Director of London Historians

Talks will be followed by informal discussion, refreshments and a visit to Bentham’s Auto-Icon.

More information here.

Tickets are FREE OF CHARGE and available from Eventbrite.

Some tickets have been reserved for members of London Historians. Members should contact Mike Paterson for information.

Find out more about Bentham in the Community, a Beacon Bursary project.

Just like at Christmas and Hogmanay, UCL runs the risk of annoying the spirit of Bentham – who, regular readers might remember, regarded such frivolous holidays as a waste of working time – by closing down for the Easter break on Wednesday 20 April. As such, our last weekly check of submissions to the Transcription Desk and issuing of a progress update before the break will take place on Friday 15 April.

UCL reopens briefly on Wednesday 27 April when submissions will be checked, before closing again on Friday 29 April until Tuesday 3 May to mark the impending royal festivities (I suppose we should be grateful to them for an extra day off, at least). The regular Friday checks will resume from 6 May.

The Transcription Desk will remain fully-functional and available throughout the break, but emails and other queries may not be attended to until we return. If transcribers have any queries about these arrangements, please do contact us before the break begins on 20 April.

In the meantime, we would like to thank all our volunteers, Facebook and Twitter followers for all their support and efforts, and hope you all have a good break.

What Jeremy might have made of a holiday for a royal wedding can only be speculated upon.

The Bentham Project is launching an exciting new public engagement initiative – Bentham in the Community – to bring together academic and amateur historians and raise awareness of the life and work of Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832).

Funded by a Beacon Bursary from UCL Public Engagement, the project will consist of three events aimed at situating UCL more firmly within the local community. The first two events will be evening information sessions, one held at UCL and the other in Spitalfields near where Bentham was born, and will feature talks by Bentham Project staff and amateur historians. The third event will be a Bentham walk around parts of London. These events will take place in May during the Historical Association’s Local History Month.

Tickets and more information will be available soon!

Dr. Valerie Wallace and Dr. Tim Causer will be giving a talk entitled ‘Crowdsourced Manuscript Transcription: Some Findings from the Transcribe Bentham Project’ on Wednesday 2nd March at the UK Archives Discovery Forum, which will be held at the National Archives at Kew.