Harry Bensley was an English rake and adventurer, best remembered as the subject of an extraordinary wager between John Pierpont Morgan and Hugh Cecil Lowther, 5th Earl of Lonsdale. One evening in 1907 at the National Sporting Club in London, Morgan and Lonsdale were arguing whether a man could walk around the world without being identified.
Bensley overheard the conversation and offered to test the proposition on their behalf. The outcome of the exchange was that Lonsdale bet Pierpoint Morgan the then-extravagant sum of $100,000 that Bensley would complete a pedestrian circumnavigation.
According to Ken McNaught, grandson of Bensley's illegitimate son Jim Beasley (changed name), this is not entirely accurate. Harry Bensley had gambled heavily with the two men, put up all his fortune in a game and lost. Now effectively destitute, he pleaded with the others to accept some way to forfeit. The two gentlemen came up with the unlikely wager.
The official Harry Bensley web site.
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