Bentham’s skeletal “auto-icon” watches students in UCL’s hallways. In life Bentham believed that surveillance could make us behave better. His dream of a Panopticon penitentiary was never realised. Instead he became the first man to campaign against transportation to Australia.

Described as a “den of beasts”, Newgate’s women were often victims of circumstance who went on to make new lives after being transported to the colonies.

In 1849, Clare College (then Clare Hall) was rocked by a great tragedy. One of its student’s, Edward Hayman, had taken his own life. Learn of Edward’s story, and of his struggles with ‘religious melancholy’.

In 1839, Charles William Bond died on this street. At the inquest into his death, it was suggested that novel-reading had contributed to his suicidal feelings. Learn about how contemporaries could interpret and rationalise suicidal behaviour.