Arthur Ferguson
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Arthur Ferguson (1883–1938) was a Scottish con artist who became known for selling British national monuments and other government property to visiting American tourists during the 1920s.
In the 1920s, Ferguson found out that he could obtain a tidy profit by selling Americans visiting London such items as Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square (for the sum of 6,000 pounds), Big Ben (1,000 pounds for a down payment), and Buckingham Palace (2,000 pounds for a down payment).
It finally dawned on Ferguson that America was indeed the land of opportunity, and so he emigrated there in 1925. He sold the White House to a rancher on the installment plan for yearly payments of $100,000 USD, and tried to sell the Statue of Liberty to a visiting Australian, who went to the police (with, according to some sources, a photograph of himself and Ferguson, taken with Ferguson's consent, supposedly to commemorate the operation). The authorities had been looking for the mysterious salesman of public landmarks, and Ferguson went to jail, to be released in 1930. He profitably continued his trade in Los Angeles until his death in 1938.
[edit] Further reading
- Ayto, John and Ian Crofton. Brewer's Britain & Ireland. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006. ISBN 0-304-35385-X
