The Bentham Room sits above the Old Gymnasium, which was given to the School in 1861 as a covered space for sports. The site was formerly part of a monks’ burial ground, when the Abbey was still a monastery, but the remains have long since been removed!
The space is named after Jeremy Bentham, a former pupil of Westminster School. He was admitted to the school at the age of seven, somewhat of a child genius, and remained here for five years before going on to university aged twelve. His radical ideas on education would go on to inspire the founding of University College London, where his body remains on display to this day, and it is from his writings that we get the first mention of the Greaze, a Westminster School tradition that still happens every Shrove Tuesday.
