Jeremy Bentham Vip Poem by Sheena Blackhall

Jeremy Bentham 1748-1832
Who was a jurist, social reformer?
Who founded utilitarianism?
Who was a famous philosopher?
Jeremy Bentham, VIP

Who fought for equal rights for women?
Who fought for the right of folk to divorce?
Who fought to decriminalise homosexuals?
Jeremy Bentham, VIP

Who sought to abolish slavery,
Capital punishment, old and young?
Who fought for animal rights, free speech?
Jeremy Bentham, VIP

Who wished to improve our jails and schools?
Poor laws, law courts, parliament too?
Who wrote a prison cook book for jailbirds?
Jeremy Bentham, VIP

Who ‘circumgyrated, ' the world's first jogger?
Who invented the game of battledore?
An atheist, who called for sexual freedom?
Jememy Bentham VIP

Who it's thought, invented underpants?
Who coined the words maximize, minimize?
Who called his walking sticks Dapple and Dobbin?
Jeremy Bentham VIP

Who called his cat a curious name,
Reverand Dr. John Langborn?
Who fed that feline macaroni?
Jeremy Bentham VIP

Who learned Latin when he was three?
Who went to Oxford aged just twelve?
Who was in infant protégé?
Jeremy Bentham VIP

Who had a pet teapot called Dickie?
Who had twentysix mourning bands
Post morten, sent to his friends and grievers?
Jeremy Bentham VIP

Whose mummified head was stolen by students
Held for a ransom, £ 0.00 paid?
That mummified head that looked unwholesome?
Jeremy Bentham VIP

Who decreed that he be dissected?
Who willed that his body then be stuffed?
His head, alas, looked far too gruesome
A waxwork head was thus deemed enough.

University College London
Keeps him on show as he wished, and clean
Jeremy Bentham VIP
Taxidermied, forever on the scene