STUDENTS at Chester’s Queen’s School are taking part in a project with international significance.

University College London (UCL)’s Transcribe Bentham aims to transcribe the hand-written works of the famous philosopher and social reformer Jeremy Bentham for the internet.

There are 60,000 of Bentham’s papers in UCL’s library but several thousands have yet to be transcribed and studied. The Queen’s School pupils were the first people outside UCL to have access to the writings as they helped Dr Valerie Wallace, research associate of the UCL Bentham Project, to test the online transcription system. While at UCL they also attended a lecture on Bentham and viewed his preserved skeleton, dressed in his own clothes, in a wooden box in the South Cloisters.

Jenny Cumiskey, one of the students who took part in the event, said: “ThisŠproject allowed us not only to engage with our own heritage through access to original historical manuscripts , but also to contribute to the documentation of the nation’s history.”

Transcribe Bentham is free and easy to take part in. Project details can be found at http://www.ucl.ac.uk/transcribe-bentham/ .