How do you move an Auto-Icon?

In February 2020, UCL's spiritual founder, Jeremy Bentham, was given a permanent new home in the university's Student Centre, where he will be showcased and preserved to museum standard. Until recently, the 'Auto-Icon' of the eccentric English philosopher - comprising Bentham's skeleton and wax head - sat in a wooden box in the corner of the Wilkins Building, dressed in 18th century clothing and holding Bentham's favourite walking stick known as 'Dapple'. Bentham is UCL's most popular museum exhibit, attracting visitors from all over the world. His new home provides greatly enhanced preservation conditions, better visitor access and a place at the centre of the student community. We asked Christina McGregor, Head of Collections Management at UCL Culture what is involved in conserving and moving Jeremy Bentham. It's a museum variation on an old joke - how do you relocate a 188 year old unique and extremely fragile clothed, seated, preserved skeleton? VERY CAREFULLY! When Jeremy Bentham died in 1832, he insisted that his body be preserved after his death as an 'auto-icon', to advance medical science, believing that individuals should make themselves as useful as possible, both in life and death. Bentham was well travelled in life and continues to be so in death.