Jeremy Bentham Bentham's auto-icon was on display in New York City at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Breuer location. Bentham's ambition in life was to create a "Pannomion", a complete utilitarian code of law. He not only proposed many legal and social reforms, but also expounded an underlying moral principle on which they should be based. This philosophy of utilitarianism took for its "fundamental axiom", "it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong"". Bentham claimed to have borrowed this concept from the writings of Joseph Priestley, although the closest that Priestley in fact
Samuel Bentham and scientist George Fordyce, a friend of Jeremy Bentham. The two were married in October 1796. In 1795 the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty asked him to design six new sailing ships with "partitions contributing to strength, and securing the ship against foundering, as practiced by the Chinese of the present day". These were built by the shipyard of Hobbs & Hellyer at Redbridge, Hampshire, and incorporated a number of other novel features such as interchangeable parts for masts and spars, allowing easy maintenance while at sea. In March 1796 Bentham was appointed Inspector General of Naval Works, responsible for