A hundred years after an Edwardian won a bet to travel the world in an iron mask while pushing a baby carriage, his great-grandson is saying he could have lied about the feat.

In his 1908 wager with John Pierrepoint Morgan, the founder of JP Morgan Bank, and Lord Lonsdale for the equivalent of $2.97 million today, Harry Bensley had to travel 30,000 miles across 19 countries while finding a wife.

The woman had to agree to marry Bensley without seeing his face or knowing his name.

Making things more complicated, Bensley was only allowed to take just $2 and two pairs of underwear and had to survive by selling postcards.

However, 100 years after Bensley embarked on his journey from Trafalgar Square, his great-grandson, Ken McNaught is saying his ancestor might have misled people about his accomplishment saying his more than 20 years of research failed to prove Bensley ever left Britain.

"It seems very odd that he leaves in a blaze of publicity and then there is nothing about him until he re-emerges six years later claiming to have traveled around the world," said McNaught who hails from Wakefield.

"I suspect that he disappeared for five years, probably to France, and came back at the outbreak of the First World War," Bensley's 49-year old great-grandson added.