Oddlet: William Topaz McGonagall · 1 min read
Jun 17, 2026
The Queen's Poet
What do you do when a voice in your head orders you to write, the verse is catastrophic, and the Queen's polite rejection reads, to you, like a coronation?
In June 1877, William Topaz McGonagall was a 52-year-old Dundee handloom weaver sitting in his back room in Paton's Lane when a voice in his head shouted "Write! Write!" He picked up a pen. The verse that followed was so consistently, magnificently terrible that he would spend the next twenty-five years being pelted with herrings, peas, potatoes, flour, soot, and stale bread.
None of it shook him.
He wrote to Queen Victoria offering his services. A palace functionary sent back a polite form-letter rejection. McGonagall read it carefully, decided it was a royal endorsement, and styled himself The Queen's Poet for the rest of his life. In July 1878 he walked the sixty miles from Dundee to Balmoral, in full Highland dress, through a thunderstorm, carrying the form letter as proof. The guards at the gate informed him that Tennyson was the Queen's poet. He walked the sixty miles home.
What he made of this is not recorded, because in 1892, the moment Tennyson died, he walked to Balmoral again to apply for the vacancy.
He was turned away a second time. He went back to Dundee and kept writing.
The voice never told him to stop.
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- Wikipedia: William McGonagall — Comprehensive biographical overview: birth/death dates, parents, marriage, poetic 'calling' of June 1877, Balmoral walk, 1880 London and 1887 New York trips, 1894 Burmah hoax, death at South College Street, Edinburgh, and burial at Greyfriars Kirkyard.
- Undiscovered Scotland: William McGonagall — Biographical sketch giving Edinburgh birth, age-52 calling, Paton's Lane direct quote, ~200 poems over 25 years, Balmoral walk after Tennyson's death, and burial at Greyfriars Kirk. Describes 'poet baiting' as a popular Dundee pastime.
- Historic UK: William Topaz McGonagall, The Dundee Bard — Edinburgh 1825 birth to poor Irish parents, marriage to Jean King in 1846, the Tay Bridge collapse on 28 December 1879 (death toll ~75), opening lines of the poem, US/UK touring in Highland costume, and 29 September 1902 death date.
- Scottish Poetry Library: The Tay Bridge Disaster — Authoritative text and commentary on the Tay Bridge Disaster poem; opening 'Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay' and the closing 'For the stronger we our houses do build, / The less chance we have of being killed.'
- McGonagall Online: Scots Poet William McGonagall Visits America, 1887
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