16 Facts About Jasper Maskelyne

Jasper Maskelyne was a British stage magician in the 1930s and 1940s.

Jasper Maskelyne was one of an established family of stage magicians, the son of Nevil Maskelyne and a grandson of John Nevil Maskelyne.

Jasper Maskelyne is most remembered for his accounts of his work for the British military during the Second World War, in which he claimed to have created large-scale ruses, deception, and camouflage in an effort to defeat the Nazis.

In 1937, Jasper Maskelyne appeared in a Pathe film, The Famous Illusionist, in which he performed his well-known trick of appearing to swallow razor blades.

In 1940, Jasper Maskelyne was trained at the Camouflage Development and Training Centre at Farnham Castle.

Jasper Maskelyne found the training boring, asserting in his book that "a lifetime of hiding things on the stage" had taught him more about camouflage "than rabbits and tigers will ever know".

Jasper Maskelyne created small devices intended to assist soldiers to escape if captured and lectured on escape techniques.

Jasper Maskelyne was then briefly a member of Geoffrey Barkas's camouflage unit at Helwan, near Cairo, set up in November 1941.

Jasper Maskelyne was made head of the subsidiary "Camouflage Experimental Section" at Abbassia.

Jasper Maskelyne was involved in making the de Havilland factory complex appear to have been destroyed when viewed by German reconnaissance flights to help secure Chapman's trust with the Germans.

Jasper Maskelyne's nature was "to perpetuate the myth of his own inventive genius, and perhaps he even believed it himself".

However, Clarke had encouraged Jasper Maskelyne to take credit for two reasons: as cover for the true inventors of the dummy machinery and to encourage confidence in these techniques amongst Allied high command.

Hambling denies Jasper Maskelyne's supposed concealment of the Suez Canal: "[I]n spite of the book's claims, the dazzle light[s] were never actually built ".

Jasper Maskelyne eventually settled in Nairobi, where he founded a successful driving school.

On 24 June 1926, Jasper Maskelyne married Evelyn Enid Mary Home-Douglas, who had worked as a magician's assistant in his stage show.

On 11 March 1948 Jasper Maskelyne married Evelyne Mary Scotcher, who was known as Mary.