Which famous philosopher had a teapot that he named “Dickey”?

Jeremy Bentham (15 February 1748 – 6 June 1832) was an English philosopher, jurist, a leading theorist in social and economic reform and regarded as the founder of modern utilitarianism.

However, he was also notably eccentric, reclusive and socially awkward. Amongst his many eccentricities, he was known for calling his walking stick “Dapple”, his teapot “Dickey”, his cat “The Reverend Sir John Langbourne” and for eating his meals backwards, beginning with dessert. In his will he insisted that his body be given over to medical science. The skeleton and head were to be preserved and stored in a wooden cabinet called the "Auto-icon", with the skeleton padded out with hay and dressed in Bentham's clothes. For more than 150 years, his clothed skeleton has been kept on public display in a glass case in the South Cloisters in the main building of University College London.

Bentham was a child prodigy, learning to read as a toddler, studying Latin at the age of three and entering Oxford University at the age of twelve. He was pivotal in the establishment of Britain’s first police force, the Thames River Police in 1800. He wrote on subjects as diverse as prison reform, religion, poor relief, international law, and animal welfare. A visionary far ahead of his time, he advocated universal suffrage and the decriminalisation of homosexuality. His writings are still at the centre of academic debate, especially as regards social policy, legal positivism and welfare economics.