This Commuter Challenge Ambassador post comes from Garrett Scott. Garrett sells “first edition and out-of-the way 18th and 19th century books and ephemera.”
Sometime in 1907, Englishman Harry Bensley undertook a substantial wager on behalf of two fellow members of the National Sporting Club in London. Club member John Pierpont Morgan had become entangled in an argument with Hugh Cecil Lowther, the Fifth Earl of Lonsdale, over the arrestingly simple question of whether a man could indeed walk around the world completely incognito. (How the two men had come to this intractable crux is evidently unrecorded, though it is perhaps worth noting that the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography says of the earl that he “was not rich, handsome, or sophisticated but he had energy and a taste for self-advertisement.â€)
As one version of this story would have it, Bensley—overhearing the contentious discussion—offered himself up as the means by which these two gentlemen could unbind this pedestrian Gordian knot. Harry Bensley would circumnavigate the globe on foot and remain unidentified. To further complicate matters, the terms of the wager upon this question were drawn up such that Bensley would set out with but a single Pound Sterling in his pocket (with the expectation that he would support his journey upon the sale of picture postcards). The extent of Bensley’s baggage was to consist of but a single change of underwear. It was also decided that over the course of his entire journey he was expected to push a customized infant’s perambulator. Bensley was also expected to wear upon his head at all times the helmet from a suit of armor so as the better to disguise himself.
There was also one further condition: Bensley was to find a wife during his travels and to woo any potential fiancées without ever doffing his helmet or otherwise revealing his identity.
The stakes of the wager were to be the fantastic sum of £21,000.
Happily, photo postcards of this heroic endeavor survive (see above or click on link). In all of the images of Bensley which I have found he cuts a striking figure at the helm of his custom perambulator, an upright specimen of a man in walking sandals, wool stockings, a sweater and knickers, bearing upon his head his helmet which in turn bears an attractive placard that boasts a simple legend: “Walking Round the World.â€
Accounts of Bensley’s journey—which he commenced on New Year’s Day, 1908—are confused at best. Some maintain that his perambulations never took him from Britain’s shores, while others claim he was plucked out of Italy at the commencement of the first World War. And depending on which version one believes, Bensley either received numerous offers of matrimony from eligible women or he was already married and thus fundamentally ill-prepared to fulfill this portion of the wager.
But there is of course something more important here than any literal truth behind Bensley’s story. 2009 marks the second year that I have signed up for the Commuter Challenge. For a mere 31 days in May I will try to make my way to work on foot or on bike. One would not expect this to pose much of a challenge as I live only three short blocks from my shop. And not only do I have all the advantages of proximity but I have also digested much of the ably-presented and readily available information on the manifold economic, personal and environmental benefits to finding an alternative to driving to work.
But having admitted all that I will confess that even I have sometimes driven my car to work.  (The weather was lousy! I had some errands to run later on! The sidewalks hadn’t yet been shoveled!) Taken by and large it seems unlikely more optimal conditions than mine for an alternative commute could exist—and yet still I have lapsed.
And this is where my lengthy historical tale comes in. Let us assume that anyone who has read this far is conversant with all the arguments for finding some means besides driving alone to get to work. Let us also assume that she has a substantial reservoir of good will to expend in the endeavor of (say) taking a bus to work. But the morning will dawn where it will seem just so much easier to drive to work. And when that morning comes (and if past history is a guide, for me it will)Â I would exhort you to hold up the example of the be-helmeted, perambulator-pushing, pedestrian circumnavigator Harry Bensley, the unlikely patron saint of the commuter challenge.
