Join the crowd digitising Jeremy Bentham

June 14, 2026 • Science

Letter: Dr Tim Causer invites readers to help complete a transcription project and to explore the writings and correspondence of the philosopher and reformer Jeremy Bentham

Your article on the digitisation and transcription of German love letters is a wonderful reminder of both the goodwill of the crowd and the pleasures of archival research (Sixty thousand love letters and counting: volunteers help sift through vast German trove of devotion, 3 June). We at the Bentham Project, based in the Faculty of Laws at University College London, have also benefited from such generosity through our Transcribe Bentham crowdsourcing initiative, which has made available online the vast manuscript archive of the philosopher and reformer Jeremy Bentham. Transcribe Bentham began in 2010, and another 20,000 or so manuscript pages require transcription. We’d like to invite your readers to help us complete the project and to explore the writings and correspondence of a figure of enormous historical importance. By doing so they will contribute to the production of the authoritative edition of The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham and a searchable digital archive of Bentham’s manuscripts. Find out more at transcribe-bentham.ucl.ac.uk. Dr Tim Causer UCL Faculty of Laws • Have an opinion on anything you’ve read in the Guardian today? Please email us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters section.

Source: The Guardian