 In old age Bentham liked to style himself “the hermit of Queen’s Square Place” (the location of his home in London), but he was anything but a hermit. In December 1823 he provided funds to start the Westminster Review, a periodical dedicated to radical views. He also assumed a leadership role in the movement for law reform and political reform, maintained regular contact with similarly inclined reformers, publishers and intellectuals at home and abroad, and was surrounded by disciples who acted as secretaries, collaborators, and editorial assistants. The Mills, Place, George Grote, Richard Smith, Peregrine Bingham, Thomas Southwood Smith, Edwin Chadwick, and John Bowring all worked with Bentham in this way. Together with others, such as Thomas Perronet Thompson, Charles Buller, John Roebuck and Joseph Hume, these later came to be known as the “philosophic radicals” (a coinage of J.S. Mill’s), though in reality the group was far less cohesive than is sometimes thought (Thomas 1979). Bentham had a telling influence on the Irish socialist utilitarian William Thompson and for a time he maintained close ties with the Irish “Liberator” Daniel O’Connell, whom he sought to bind, with limited success, to the radical cause in parliament (Crimmins 2013, Ch.7). Burdett and Brougham were also treasured acquaintances, though this did not prevent Bentham from expressing scepticism about the dedication to radical reform of the former, or from criticising the latter’s proposals to reform the Chancery Court in Lord Brougham Displayed (1832 [1838–43, V, 549–612).