The Other Man in the Iron Mask


100 years ago today, Harry Bensley set off on a strange journey, in order to fulfill the requirements of a wager between John Pierpont Morgan and Hugh Cecil Lowther, 5th Earl of Lonsdale. The question was whether a man could walk around the world without being identified. The journey had 15 conditions, including that Bensley had to wear an iron mask from a suit of armor and push a baby carriage! Bensley spent the next six and a half years trying to fulfill the terms of the wager. Link

There's a website on the adventure of Harry Bensley (with more photos) maintained by Ken McNaught, the great grandson of Bensley.

By the way, today (January 1 2008) is the 100th anniversary of the start of Bensley's adventure.

And Noelegy, £21,000 at 1907 is now valued:

£1,526,895.66 using the retail price index
£1,907,101.55 using the GDP deflator
£8,019,583.97 using average earnings
£9,330,442.38 using per capita GDP
£12,913,543.88 using the GDP

(source)
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this would be an awesome movie... if anyone were to take up this story it would have to be the cohen brothers. i could see it being a bit like 'no country for old men..' and it would have to be starring a young john cleece. of cours, this is not possible, and my dreams are crushed.
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Found this link through fark:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/01/01/nmask101.xml

"Despite more than 20 years of research (his great-grandson) has not found a shred of evidence his ancestor ever left Britain."

Although, they made a mistake in the last paragraph (ancestor vs. descendant).
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Sounds like he didn't actually do it, but simply went incognito for a few years to avoid his creditors.
It's like betting you can go around the world as an invisible person - who's to prove you didn't?
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Back then £ 21,0000 was $100,000. Today's value, keeping the valuation method above:

$3.1 million using the retail price index
$3.8 million using the GDP deflator
$16 million using average earnings
$18.6 million using per capita gDP
$25.8 million using the GDP
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Inresponse to Mooncakes question a movie is possibly in the making, although I don't know the full details yet about whether it is going to go ahead or not. I should also mention that Harry Bensley is my great great grandfather.
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