Every month, a strange scene plays out in the student centre at University College London.

A crowd gathers as a member of the staff gets ready to open up a large glass case.

It always gets a lot of excitement, actually, when we open the case. Because of its location,

so centrally, there's inevitably always a lot of students around. They open it up and check the

contents. For any kind of creepy crawlies or anything like that, there's pest traps.

It's a standard maintenance check,

and it wouldn't be all that exciting

if it wasn't for what's inside that case.

First appearances, you would just think it's a man

sat in a chair, wearing a straw hat,

wearing gloves, wearing a dark suit,

his outfit, but actually underneath is a articulated

skeleton, and it's topped with a wax head.

That's right. There's a man's skeleton dressed in 19th century clothing with an extremely

realistic wax head, just sitting there

between some steps in the space where students hang out and do homework. And this isn't just any

skeleton. These are the bones of the well-known British philosopher, Jeremy Bentham. Bentham thought

people should make themselves as useful as possible.

So nearly 200 years ago,

he left his own body behind as his final gift to the world

to be made into this strange display that he called the Auto Icon.

He believed that these grisly statues would proliferate

...