ABSTRACT
In the period approximately encompassed by the years 1830 and 1870, British governmental activity underwent a notable change. This chapter shows that the core of Jeremy Bentham's thought was in harmony with the general thrust of governmental developments in the middle decades of the nineteenth century, and that Bentham anticipated several of the features of those developments. It assesses the degree to which Bentham's friends and associates directly involved in the reforms can legitimately be described as followers who were applying his principles. The chapter also examines the possibility that other participants in the revolution in government, who were not consciously his followers, might nevertheless have been influenced by his ideas. Bentham foresaw and recommended many of the elements that made up the nineteenth-century revolution in government. The obvious place to start is by looking at the figures conventionally described as 'Benthamites'. Bentham's thought influenced at least some of the participants in the revolution in government.
