William McGonagall: The Worst Poet in History?

“The chicken is a noble beast,

The cow is much forlorner,

Standing in the pouring rain,

With a leg in every corner.”

Perhaps by just reading that short stanza, you’ve made up your mind and don’t feel the need to learn more about the author of this rather awful prose. Is there anybody else that could offer up such a competitive race in appalling verse and tortuous doggerel?

Here is a brief resume of one of the most curious characters in the literary history of Scotland — William Topaz McGonagall.

Early Life and Upbringing

McGonagall was born in Edinburgh in 1825, and lived in Orkney until he was 11. His parents were both Irish, and his father was a hand-loom weaver. In search of work, the family moved around Scotland before settling in Dundee in 1840, the city that he is most associated with.

McGonagall followed in his father’s footsteps and also became a weaver. He married Jean King in 1846, and together, they had seven children — five sons and two daughters.

The middle name “Topaz” was not a birth title — somewhat unsurprisingly, given his character. This arrived late in his life during the 1890s when he was the target of a prank letter.

The letter informed him that he’d been appointed by the King of Burma as Sir Topaz, Knight of the White Elephant of Burma. Whether McGonagall truly fell victim to the hoax or not is unclear, but thereafter he had this title printed on his publicity.

McGonagall’s “Epiphany”

By the 1870s, hand-weaving was in decline due to the Industrial Revoultion, and work was harder to come by. Luckily for McGonagall, he claimed to have experienced an epiphany. He suddenly realised that for all his life, he had been missing his true calling; he was born to be a poet and had discovered his muse.

As he described that magical moment;

“It was in the year of 1877, and in the month of June … when all of a sudden my body got inflamed, and instantly I was seized with a strong desire to write poetry, so strong, in fact, that in imagination I thought I heard a voice crying in my ears: Write! Write!”

He dedicated his first poem to a local minister entitled ‘Address to the Reverend George Gilfillan’. The subject of the poem, upon reading it, rather obliquely replied, “Shakespeare never wrote anything like this”. How McGonagall felt about the comment is unknown, but his confidence indicates that he would assuredly have welcomed it.

He then began touring Scotland performing recitations of his poetry to the public. He even wrote to Queen Victoria to ask for her patronage; all he received back was a letter of thanks with a polite rejection. Still, McGonagall took this expression of thanks as confirmation that the Queen wished to employ his services. This is a prime example of his obtuseness and lack of self-awareness and insight.

In 1892, he actually walked the 60 miles from Dundee to the royal residence Balmoral Castle. Along the way he got caught in bad weather and arrived at the castle gates soaked to the skin.

He approached the guards and introduced himself as “The Queen’s Poet”, much to the amusement of the soldiers, who quickly replied that “Tennyson’s the Queen’s poet”, even despite his recent death.

McGonagall Takes the Stage as Macbeth

He was not only a poet — he was an actor too. It is noted that McGonagall was a fan of Shakespeare and often recited verses from the playwrite to his shop mates. While he was still working as a weaver, he played Macbeth in a stage adaptation after paying one of the theatre owners a large sum of money to be allowed to appear.

During the production, he was convinced the actor playing Macduff was trying to upstage him. So, at the end of the play, when it came to his character’s death scene, he simply refused to die.

He continued with the final sword-fight scene for far longer than Shakespeare had intended, but it resulted in the audience cheering him on. He was undoubtedly a resolute and determined man in life and theatre.

The Silvery Tongue on the Tay

Without a doubt, his magnum opus — if one can call it that — was the celebrated poem ‘The Tay Bridge Disaster’ about an event in 19th century Scotland. It was an appalling tragedy; in December 1879, an estimated 75 people were killed as the famous River Tay Rail Bridge collapsed when a train passed across its rails.

In keeping with the solemnity of the aftermath, McGonagall wrote some equally appalling verse to mark the occasion.

“So the train mov’d slowly along the Bridge of Tay,

Until it was about midway,

Then the central girders with a crash gave way,

And down went the train and passengers into the Tay!”

His unique take on soap

In his work ‘A Paean to Sunlight Soap’ (1894), he extolled the virtues of the product in what sounds like a bad TV commercial of modern times. Perhaps he was catching the mood of national reform of health, housing and sanitation that was sweeping Victorian Scotland.

“You can use it with great pleasure and ease,

Without wasting any elbow grease,

And when washing the most dirty clothes,

The sweat won’t be dripping from your nose”

A Three-Ring Circus

Over time, he fell out of favour with his adopted home-town of Dundee. To be exact, it came when city authorities banned his act at a local circus. During recitations of his poems, the audience was encouraged to throw eggs, potatoes, stale bread and herring at the the stage.

Apparently these were all a feature of audience participation with which McGonagall had no complaints whatsoever. Nevertheless the show was stopped, and his reaction showed his anger. Words did not exactly fail him, but certainly his scansion did.

“Fellow citizens of Bonnie Dundee,

Are ye aware how the magistrates have treated me,

Nay, do not stare or make a fuss,

When I tell you they have boycotted me from appearing in Royal Circus,

Which in my opinion is a great shame,

And a dishonour to the city’s name.”

McGonagall’s Enduring Popularity

Despite the quality of his ridiculous prose and actions, McGonagall’s work is much loved today, and it is largely thanks to legendary comic Spike Milligan. He introduced the character of McGonagall to a new and appreciative audience in the 1950s when tributes to the poet were featured on The Goon Show, a classic radio program that ran from 1951 to 1960.

Milligan continued this love affair for the poetry of McGonagall for many years after. This included two novels and even a movie, The Great McGonagall, released in 1974, in which he starred. The film recounts his journey to Balmoral, his role in Macbeth and featured many of his poems. There was even a cameo appearance by Peter Sellers as Queen Victoria.

The poetry would also inspire wonderful creativity in critics such as Nicholas T. Parsons, who exclaimed that reading the poetry of McGonagall was an experience “like that of being driven unsteadily down a meandering road in a rattling old banger, which finally turns abruptly into a brick wall”.

Another observer Stephen Pile summed him up by saying, “He was so giftedly bad that he backed unwittingly into genius”. This is undoubtedly one of the most remarkable back-handed compliments ever written in the English language.

Some researchers and analysts have speculated that McGonagall was not quite as niaive as he seemed. It’s now acknowledged that perhaps he was very aware that his poetry was awful but that he knew a market was there for his particular brand of doggerel.

However, others have analysed his life and work and have concluded that he may have suffered from an autistic spectrum disorder such as Asperger’s Syndrome. This would further explain his lack of awareness to audience’s reactions and lack of reality concerning his talent.

The Final Years

Despite his ups and downs, by 1895, McGonagall has become a cult figure in his native town of Edinburgh. Although the success was short-lived, at least he eventually achieved public attention, something he had striven for long and hard.

He died in 1902 at age 77 at his home at №5 South College. He was penniless and was buried in the graveyard of the Greyfriars Kirk. Though considered perhaps as one of the worst poets in history, his words live on, as does his historic status as a great eccentric and Scottish legend.