Jeremiah Bentham (1712 - 1792)

Born Dec 1712 in St Botolph Without Aldgate, London, England

Ancestors

Husband of Alicia (Grove) Whitehorn — married 3 Oct 1745 in All Hallows London Wall, London, England

Husband of Sarah (Farr) Bentham — married 14 Oct 1766 in St Margaret, Westminster, Middlesex, England

Descendants

Died 1792 at about age 79 in England

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Biography

Jeremiah was born in 1712. He is the son of Jeremiah Bentham and Rebecca. He was christened in Dec 1712 in Jeremiah allegedly married the young widow Mrs Alicia Whitehorn nee Grove in 1745^[1] They had 7 children, of whom only Jeremiah and Samuel lived to an old age.

1. Jeremiah Bentham
2. Alicia Bentham
3. Anne Bentham
4. Rebecca Bentham
5. Rebecca Bentham
6. Thomas Bentham
7. Samuel Bentham

He passed away in 1792^[2] and was apparently buried in London, although there is a burial record for a Jeremiah Bentham in Bath Abbey^[3]

Will: Note: Will of Jeremiah Bentham of Saint Margaret City of Westminster , Middlesex 05 April 1792 PROB 11/1217.

biog Note:

"In what I may say of my father, there is not a particle of malice. I was always on good terms with my father. Had I not been, 1 should not dare to speak freely, lest the value of my testimony should be diminished. How often, down to the last hours of our intercourse, when we were sitting on contiguous chairs, has my father taken up my hand and kissed it!.

"His second wife exhibited the character of a mother-in-law as painted on every sign-post. My father has often said to me\emdash ' I'll do you the justice to say, that neither of you has ever spoken a word to me against the other.' To his lady, this forbearance was not a task of any great difficulty; for though at every step she stood in my way, at no step did I ever stand in her's. Her situation was that of empress\emdash mine, that of a poor relation kept in a state of continual suffering, by privations, and serious and unprovoked insults. When I presented an humble petition, that my father's visits to my chambers should rather be in an evening than in a morning, as in the latter case, the thread of my studies was broken, and the remainder of the day, together with those, ideas suggested by continuous thought, irrevocably lost, she has more than once told me that 'It should not be\emdash she would not suffer it.' I had then no means of knowing what was passing in the world but by the newspaper which I sometimes took up from my father's table. It was not unusual for her to snatch it violently out of my hand. The table, whatever was the provision for others, was always scantily spread when I was honoured with an invitation. Necessity sometimes forced me to sit there; but during twenty or five-and-twenty years, of the small apple pie which was ordinarily provided, it was never my good fortune to get half of what I should have been glad to have." *' Mrs Bentham was a great devotee of the Church of England, and tormented Bentham by perpetually introducing religious discussions, which he as invariably sought to avoid. "She frequently upbraided me with opinions which it was her good pleasure to attribute to me, and liked to talk to.me, whom she called Mr Jerry of Hume's impiety." But even to his father he never opened his lips on a topic which he knew would be painful to him. A short time before his father's death, when they were seated together in the study, the old man took his son's hand, which he kissed, and said\emdash "Jerry! you have made a philosopher of me!" But even to this remark Bentham made no reply, lest it might embroil him with his mother-in-law, whose opinions were intolerant Church-of-Englandism. Bentham's sketch of her character may serve as a portrait of a whole genus, too numerous and too influential, alas! in the world. "She had an exalted idea of the credenda of the Church, and the temporal rewards attached to them. They were connected with a sentiment of power and dignity, of which a portion belonged to herself as member of that church. Interest, in a sort of technical sense, was the grand object of her ad. miration. 'What an interest, what a powerful interest such a man has! see what things are to be done by interest!' was the observation and the teaching of her worldly wisdom; and what she meant by ' interest' was the facility of acquiring, by any means, for the purposes of self-advancement, the services of the givers of good gifts, By religion she never understood piety; for which she had no panegyrics, neither* for the substance nor the Bemblance: piety weighed for little in her scales. Of abstract merit\emdash of service done to mankind as a claim to recompense \emdash she seldom spoke ; and if she spoke, it was in terms of scorn and jealousy. Her manners were dreadfully oppressive; and I was sometimes glad to have the shield of protection thrown over me by one of my brothers-in-law, who was nine years younger than I\emdash he a boy and I a man.".

In the mind of Bentham's father, selfishness would seem to have been the unchecked sovereign. Affection, benevolence, he had none. He considered every service done to others as so much lost to himself\emdash that he was so much 'the poorer for the kindnesses he rendered to any one else. He had not learned that, by every benefit done to another by his agency, he was, in fact, so much the richer in proportion to the extent of the benefit. Bentham mentioned that, once being in a boat with his father, mother-in-law, and, probably, one of her sons, his father made an observation, with a chuckle of satisfaction, in which Mrs Bentham joined: "Now, should it so happen that a leak were sprung, and that we all went to the bottom, is there a creature upon earth that would fuel any concern at the thoughts of it?" "The reflection," said Bentham, "filled me with gloom. I made no observation. I did not agree with my father as to the fact. Whether his conception was right or wrong, my thoughts were always of a contrary kind. I believed that there were in this world some to whom my death would not be wholly indifferent; not many, indeed\emdash many they could not be\emdash for I had obtained admission to the society of the few alone, yet could not but indulge the hope that, among these few, there were those who felt some concern in my existence, and even interest in my usefulness.".

Though Bentham's father had the reputation in the city of "a very learned" and a "very clever man," that reputation seems rather to have been founded on airs of dignity, and assumptions of superiority, which too often pass current in the world as representations of true wisdom. He had, like his illustrious son, a phraseology of his own. If a person neglected to visit him, he would call the absence "selfsequestration." If a client left him, he shook his head and said\emdash "Ah! he has taken himself into his own hands." He had two ways of accounting for all conduct which was opposed to his standard. If the party were of such rank as that, without presumption, he might sit in judgment, he called the deed he disapproved of, "infatuation;" but when he was afraid to attribute anything like blame, he always said it was " a mystery." And these two words\emdash " infatuation" and " mystery"\emdash were the talismans with which be explained whatever was otherwise unexp'ainable, and dealt out a sort of oracular decision to his hearers. But Bentham did not perceive either wisdom or eloquence in the manner or the matter of his father's law-giving; and he often left the room in silent abashment when his father, after uttering the solemn words "mystery" or "infatuation," considered he had both instructed and delighted his auditors, and sat down in evident self-satisfaction.

His mind was a confused one; and he could not get out of the entanglements which his want of precise ideas created. He adopted for the family motto\emdash Tain bene quam benigne; and, when Bentham was very young, he was called on to translate the phrase, the application of which his father considered a most lucky hit, for it was meant to convey a recondite meaning\emdash Tarn bene, read backwards, was to designate Ben-tham. The lad neither valued the wit nor preserved the motto, though he once observed to me\emdash " My father's reasons were as good as those which justify nine-tenths of the mottos in use.". Bentham's father had, in truth, not the slightest comprehension of the delicacy and diffidence of his son's nature. He pressed harshly upon all his susceptibilities. In speaking of him at so much length, I have been developing the biography of Bentham himself\emdash unveiling the secrets of his mind, while shewing the difficulties of his position. He whose maturer and later life flowed in one stream of continued happiness\emdash the most gay and joyous of men\emdash had of his boyhood few recollections of pleasure, except, indeed, when he escaped from his father's influence to some Eden in the country, or some solitude in town.

Marriage Husband Jeremiah Bentham. PREF Y. Wife Alicia Whitehorn. PREF Y. Marriage 3 Oct 1745. Allhallows London Wall.

Sources

1. ↑ https://archive.org/stream/TheCorrespondenceOfJeremyBenthamVolume1/The-Correspondence-of-Jeremy-Bentham-Volume-1_djvu.txt Page xxxvi
2. ↑ https://archive.org/stream/TheCorrespondenceOfJeremyBenthamVolume1/The-Correspondence-of-Jeremy-Bentham-Volume-1_djvu.txt page xxxvii
3. ↑ https://www.freereg.org.uk/search_records/5818d34ee93790ec75ac7c5c/jeremiah-bentham-burial-somerset-bath-1792-04-01?locale=en

• "England Births and Christenings, 1538-1975", database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:JW76-2L9 : 22 March 2020), Jeremiah Bentham, 1712.
• https://archive.org/stream/TheCorrespondenceOfJeremyBenthamVolume1/The-Correspondence-of-Jeremy-Bentham-Volume-1_djvu.txt