Arthur Furguson
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This article is about the Scottish con artist. For the Scottish police officer, see Arthur George Ferguson.
Arthur Furguson (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, Furguson sold monuments such as Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square (for the sum of £6,000), Big Ben (£1,000 for a down payment), and Buckingham Palace (£2,000 for a down payment) to American tourists.
Furguson emigrated into the USA in 1925. He sold the White House to a rancher on the installment plan for yearly payments of $100,000, and tried to sell the Statue of Liberty to a visiting Australian, who went to the police. Ferguson was imprisoned and was released in 1930. He continued to defraud people in Los Angeles until his death in 1938.
[edit] See Also
[edit] Further reading and references
- Ayto, John and Ian Crofton. Brewer's Britain & Ireland. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006. ISBN 0-304-35385-X
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