Revisionist History - The Worst Poet in the World | From Cautionary Tales

Episode Date: May 7, 2026

In light of our current series on mistakes, we're sharing an episode from Cautionary Tales—a podcast that’s all about mistakes and what we can learn from them. This story is about a poet—some say the worst poet in the world–William McGonagall. McGonagall's works were full of jarring meter, banal imagery, and awkward rhymes. They made him a laughing stock in 19th Century Scotland and are still derided to this day. What can we learn from such a disastrous poet? And it is possible we’ve misunderstood McGonagall all along?   We'll be back with a new mistake next week.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Bushkin. You're about to hear an episode of Cautionary Tales with Tim Harford. Tim's podcast explores mistakes from history, and importantly, what we can learn from them. As you can imagine, there's a lot of disasters to choose from, but there's always an interesting angle on what we can take from them. I learned something new every time. It'd be surprised, but a shipwreck from the 60s

can teach us something about a mistake we all make when making decisions today. This episode is about a poet. William McGonigal is remembered today as the worst poet in the world, and Tim is obsessed with his work. I think I am too. Here's a quick example. A pathetic tale of the sea I will unfold, enough to make one's blood run cold. Concerning four fishermen cast adrift in a dory, as I've been told, I'll relate the story. T'was on the 8th April, on the afternoon of that day, that the village of Louisburg was thrown into a wild state of disarray. So, what can we learn from a disastrous poet? Tim has a few ideas, and in true revisionist history style,

he has a feeling we've been understanding McGonagall all wrong. Enjoy the episode, it's one of my favorites, and make sure you subscribe to Cautionary Tales for plenty more disasters and plenty more lessons. The wind is fierce, no doubt about it. It's the strongest gale that John Watt can remember, and he's been working for the North British Rwrest. railway since 1867, a full 12 years. It's a good night to be safely sheltered in the railway

signal cabin, sharing a mug of tea with a friend, signalman Thomas Barkley. As Watt and Barclay sit their tea and look out of the window into the darkness, it can see the faint line of lamps all along the new railway bridge, running almost two miles across the wide River Tay to the city of Dundee. Every now and then, the clouds gusts apart, and the full moon picks out the high girders of the longest bridge in the world. A few minutes after 7 o'clock comes the signal from the south. The northbound train is approaching. where Sparkley steps out of the cabin, into the wind, and waits as the train approaches, the sparks from the wheels visible in the dark. He greets the crew with a smile, handing over the baton that gives permission for a train to cross the bridge. The train is

moving at walking pace. He sees a child peer out of the window of a carriage as it passes. Then, as the train puffs off over the long, high iron span, Thomas goes back to his friend in the shelter of the cabin and sends a message to the signal box over on the other side of the River Tay. The signal bell rings three times in response, and still the wind howls. Thomas turns back to his mug of tea, but John Watt is gazing out of the window,

at the bridge. There's something wrong with the train, he says. Thomas Barclay thinks he's imagining it, but John knows what he's seen. Three red tail lamps fading into the distance over the bridge, and then a series of flashes, three small and one big. Then, darkness. No tail lamps.

The train's gone over, Thomas, he says. Thomas Barkley still isn't convinced. Surely the train has just disappeared from view after cresting the highest point of the bridge. Surely they'll see her again soon. But they don't. Thomas tries calling the signal box on the other side of the bridge. Nothing.

They go outside, briefly venture onto the bridge, and then retreat as the wind threatens to tear them off the girders and into the waters below. The clouds part again, and the full moon reveals the scene. A thousand yards of the bridge are gone. The high girders of the central spams. The iron piers that had supported them also gone.

And of course, the train has gone too. And every one of its passengers, it's a catastrophe. But this is not a story about a fatal bridge collapse. It's a story about a poet. I'm Tim Harford, and you're listening to Cautionary Tales. Beautiful railway bridge of the silvery Tay. Alas, I'm very sorry to say that 90 lives have been taken away.

On the last Sabbath day of 1879, which will be remembered for a very long time, Thus begins a poem titled The Tay Bridge Disaster. It is widely regarded as the worst poem ever written, and its author, William McGonagall, is widely regarded as the worst poet. I'll spare you the full poem, but here's a central verse. So the train moved 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

The storm fiend did loudly bray Because 90 lives had been taken away On the last Sabbath day of 1879 Which will be remembered for a very long time When I was just a boy I saw an illustration of the Tay Bridge catastrophe In a children's picture book It stayed with me. I can still see it in my mind.

The bridge seemed so horribly high and thin, as it collapses into the storm, the train is just steaming off into thin air. It's awful. And then I encountered William McGonagall's truly terrible poem, and it stuck with me just as vividly, or should I say, it has been remembered. for a very long time. Here's the end of the poem.

Oh, ill-fated bridge of the silvery tea, I must now conclude my lay by telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay that your central girders would not have given way, at least many sensible men do say, had they been supported on each side with buttresses,

at least many sensible men confesses, For the stronger we our houses do build, the less chance we have of being killed. It's awful. I'm obsessed with William McGonagall. I have so many questions. Who was this man? What does he teach us about art? And above all, how does a poem get to be this bad?

I have several biographies of the poet McGonigal in front of me. One of them says he was born in 1825, another says he was born in 1830, and both were written by William McGonagall himself. William McGonigle's parents were Irish, but he was born in Edinburgh and went to school in South Ronaldse, one of the Orkney Islands, remote even by the standards of Scotland. William's education was interrupted by, of all things, an encounter with his teacher's beloved pet tortoise.

William was fascinated by the creature, but when he picked it up to fully admire the beauty of its shell, the unfortunate animal voided its bowels on his hands. In disgust, the boy hurled the tortoise to the ground, nearly killing it, and McGonigal's teacher, enraged, started thrashing his face with a cane. all very distressing. William's father complained the local magistrate. The magistrate threatened to disbarred a teacher,

and the practical outcome was that the teacher lived in fear of ever upsetting William again, who skipped school with impunity. That was the story McGonagall would tell, and his point was clear. William McGonigal was much like William Shakespeare. He had learned more from nature than he learned at school. McGonigle adored his namesake William Shakespeare.

He read and re-read Macbeth, Richard III, Hamlet and Othello. I gave myself no rest until I obtained complete mastery over the above four characters. McGonigal's family moved to Dundee, where both he and his father worked as weavers, William would give impromptu performances of Shakespeare to his shopmates. He says they were quite delighted, and perhaps they were, since they were willing to pay good money to support his theatrical ambitions. William McGonigal was to play the title role in Macbeth, just as long as he paid one pound to the theatre owner for the privilege,

about $100 in today's money. His colleagues all contributed, and nobody could. can say they didn't get their money's worth. McGonigle couldn't afford a costume of his own, so borrowed a few items from friends and colleagues and took the stage, dressed less like the ambitious nobleman Macbeth and more like a Highland beggar.

The play traditionally ends with a climactic fight in which Macbeth is slain by Macduff. This concept proved too pedestrian for McGonigal. One witness described the result, an immortal scene in more ways than one. McGonigal had evidently made up his mind to astonish the gods at his performance, for instead of dying when run through the body by the sword of McDuff, he maintained his feet and flourished his weapon about the airs of his adversary in such a way that there was for some time an apparent probability of the performance ending in real,

tragedy. McGonigle saw it differently. The actor who was playing Macduff against my Macbeth tried to spoil me in the combat by telling me to cut it short. I continued the combat until he were fairly exhausted and until there was one old gentleman in the audience cried out, well done, McGonagall, walk into him. And so I did until he was in a great rage and stamped his foot and cried out, fool. What? Don't you fall? With McDuff audibly urging McGonigle's Macbeth to go down, and Macbeth ignoring him over and over again,

McDuff enraged, wrapped Macbeth over his knuckles with the flat of the blade, forcing him to drop his own sword. McGonigle was now unarmed but undaunted, and he dodged around and around McDuff, looking for all the world as though he now planned to wrestle for it. The Macduff actor, disgusted at the tomfoolery, tossed his own sword aside and charged in to tackle McGonagall. The sublime tragedy of Macbeth came to an undignified end,

with the title character swept off his feet and deposited on his backside. The audience were ecstatic. They bellowed for McGonigle to be brought forward to receive a standing ovation. What a shame that McGonigall's artistic sensitivities were not put to full-time use. He continued to work as a weaver for decades. Not to worry. Good things come to those who wait. He would eventually emulate William Shakespeare, the man he so admired.

William McGonagall would become a poet. Cautionary tales will be back after the break. McGonigal was about 50 when it became clear to him that there was no future in weaving. Machine looms had taken over. I couldn't make a living from it. But I may say, Dame Fortune has been very kind to me by endowing me with the genius of poetry. I remember how I felt when I received the spirit of poetry. It was June 1877.

McGonagall was lamenting that he couldn't get away to the Highlands for a holiday. 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, right, right! I wondered what could be the matter with me, and I began to walk backwards and forwards in a great fit of excitement, saying to myself,

I know nothing about poetry, but still the voice kept ringing in my ears, right, right, until at last, being overcome with a desire to write poetry, I found paper, pen and ink, and in a state of frenzy, sat me down to think what would be my first subject for a poem. That subject was the Reverend George Gill Fillan, a local preacher McGonigal wished to praise. The poem stirringly concludes, My blessing on his noble form and on his lofty heed.

May all good angels guard him while living, and hereafter win his deed. McGonagall sent the poem to the Dundee Weekly News, which took the unwise step of printing it. Thus encouraged, he sent a second poem, Bonnie Dundee. Oh, Bonnie Dundee, I will sing in thy praise a few but true simple lays, regarding some of your beauties of the present day,

and virtually speaking there's none can them gain say. For superfine goods, there's none can excel, from Inverness to Clarkinwell, and your tramways I must confess that they have proved a complete success, which I am right glad to see, and a very great improvement to Bonnie Dundee. There is more.

But alas, the weekly news declined to print what it described as a so-called poem, at which point McGonagall sent them a letter threatening to stop sending any more poems. The weekly news dryly explained to its readers that we can only express the fervent hope that he may put into execution this artful threat. In the summer of 1878,

McGonigle had been a poem. it for just a year, when he received a letter from Queen Victoria's private secretary, Sir Thomas Bidolf, informing him that Her Majesty would like to become a patron of his poems. McGonagall seems not to have registered any surprise at this sudden honour, but he was inspired to make the 59-mile journey from Dundee to Queen Victoria's residence at Balmoral, so that he could recite his verse for her. For an unemployed weaver, there was no way to reach Balmoral except to walk. The journey took three days,

during which time McGonagall was fed and sheltered by shepherds who took pity on him. He recorded some of his journey in poetry, notably, On the Spittle of Glenshie, which is most dismal for to sea, with its bleak and rugged mountains, and clear crystal spouting fountains, with their misty foam, and thousands of sheep there together doth roam. He was drenched by hours of rain

and threatened by the roaring and flashing of a thunderstorm overhead that was undaunted. Having told his friends back in Dundee that on his way to see Her Majesty and Balmoral, he would pass through fire and water rather than retreat. Finally, mid-afternoon on the third day, McGonigle reached her majesty's residence at Balmoral Castle. He was intercepted by the constable at Balmoral's Gatehouse Lodge,

who presumably observed McGonogall's collar-length wave of hair, his drenched, patched-up clothes, and his dirty boots, and did not think to himself, here comes a future poet laureate. I showed him Her Majesty's royal letter of patronage for my poetic abilities, and he read it and said it was not Her Majesty's letter. Someone had played a cruel trick, but McGonigal insisted that the letter was genuine.

The constable took it away for a while, before returning to announce, Well, I've been up at the castle with your letter, and the answer I got for you is they canny be bothered with you. McGonigal showed the constable a copy of his poems, including the claim that McGonigle was poet to her. Her Majesty. The constable objected, You are not poet to our majesty.

Tennyson's the real poet to her majesty. Ah yes, Alfred Lord Tennyson, the actual poet laureate. How inconvenient. In writing The Charge of the Light Brigade, Alfred Lord Tennyson performed a rare feat. He created a poem that is as famous as the disaster is. describes. Cannon to the right of them, cannon to the left of them, cannon in front of them

volleyed and thundered, stormed at with shot and shell, boldly they rode and well into the jaws of death, into the mouth of hell rode the 600. William McGonagall never got close to succeeding

Tennyson as poet laureate. Yet his poem, the Tay Bridge Desire. matches Tennyson's achievement. I mean, Tennyson was good, but he was no William McGonigall. But I digress. The constable suggested that McGonigle demonstrate his skills by reciting some poetry at the Castle Gate. No, sir, said McGonigal.

He wasn't some wandering charlatan, he was the real thing. Take me into one of the rooms on the lodge and pay me for it, And I will give you a recital. The constable didn't oblige, but he gave McGonagall some advice. Unless you want to be arrested, go home. And don't think of returning to Balmoral. McGonagall duly began the three-day walk home to Dundee.

When he got back, he wrote up his adventures, sent them to the newspapers, and before long was being mocked, up and down the British Isles. As a headline in the evening telegraph put it, Extraordinary freak of a Dundee poet William McGonagall at Balmoral, genius still unrecognised. When a cruel prank wastes a week of your life,

dashes your hopes, and leads you to being mocked in the national press, what can you do? The answer? Pick yourself up and try again. McGonogle noted that Tennyson was famous for his war poetry, so he decided to dabble in war poems too. They are not very good. The Battle of Cressy begins... To us on the 26th of August, the sun was burning hot,

in the year of 1346, which will never be forgot. And ends with the classic McGonagall move of cramming some extra syllables in, free of charge. And the king's heart was filled with great delight, and he thanked Jack for capturing the bohemian standard during the fight. But McGonigal was soon encouraged to receive a lucrative job offer from the famous playwright and theatre impresario Dion Busico. Boussico's letter invited him to a fine dinner.

But as McGonigal tells the story, he arrived to find several men away. barely suppressing giggles as McGonigle was served a cheap sandwich. McGonigal had been pranked again. Although when Busako heard about the joke, he sent McGonagall a sympathetic letter and five pounds. Enough money for McGonigal to visit London. He had hoped to meet with one or two of London's most celebrated actors,

but had no more luck there than at first. Balmoral. Later, McGonogle ventured to New York, a city he honoured in distinctive style. As for Brooklyn Bridge, it's a very great height and fills the stranger's heart with wonder at first sight.

And with all its loftiness, I venture to say, it cannot surpass the new railway bridge of the silvery tay. William McGonagall did not succeed in selling his poems in New York, so returned to the road. to Scotland. He was cheered to receive a letter from the poet laureate of Burma, writing on behalf of Burma's

King Teabour, making McGonigal, Topaz McGonigal, Knight of the White Elephant of Burma. McGonigle accepted the honour and wore his medal, a silver elephant, with pride. If he ever feared that This letter was as fraudulent as the others, he shared no doubts. McGonigal spent his final years giving public performances in Perth, Glasgow and Edinburgh, where the main attraction appeared to be the opportunity to hurl abuse and worse at the aspiring poet laureate. McGonagall would dash about the stage, excitedly enacting the action as he gave dramatic recitals of his war poems,

clad in a kilt and brandishing a claymore with perilous enthusiasm. More useful was his small round shield with which he could parry incoming eggs and cabbages. William McGonagall died in poverty on the 29th of September 1902. He was 72 years old, or 77. He was buried in a pauper's grave, having practiced the art of poetry for, 25 years and having been mocked for every one of them.

The death certificate misspells his name. Emil Zola died on the same day as it happens. Zola, a fine writer. He was no William McGonagall. Cautionary tales will return after the break. The poetry critics argue that McGonigal has an important lesson to teach us. He is the perfect example of how not to write poetry. If you must read him, be sure to do the opposite of whatever he does. Joseph Salami, an award-winning poet, complains,

I know far too many persons who share some of McGonagall's faults. Can we at least resolve that we will not commit the poetic crimes that McGonigle committed? Can we stop with the humdrum plainness The vapid statement, the dull diction, the crappy metre, the tedious length, the triviality, the commonplace thoughts and the cliched perceptions? Dr Gerard Carruthers, an expert in Scottish literature, agrees. There is something rather cruel about a still reprinting and republishing McGonigle, he told the BBC, it's time for us to close the book on McGonagall once and for all. But that feels so narrow-minded.

I draw a different lesson. We shouldn't complain about a man who wrote bad poetry. We should celebrate a man who wrote poetry. Of course, the poems are bad, but most poems are bad. Most acts of human creativity are fairly incompetent. Most of us can't write novels, not that anyone else would pay to read. Most of us can't draw or paint anything that anyone else would pay to look at. Most of us can't act.

We can't sing, we can't dance. Who cares? Dance and sing anyway. I think we're prone to making a sad mistake when we think about creative acts. We instinctively set the benchmark at an absurdly high level. We've been spoiled. Perhaps because at the touch of a button, we can listen to Glenn Gould playing Johann Sebastian Bach.

We can watch Ian McKellen and Judy Dench performing Shakespeare. We can read a novel by Austin, or watch a film by Coppola, or gaze at an interior by Vermeer. Not only has modern technology made these wonders possible, but modern technology also makes more humdrum creative acts economically worthless. Nobody is going to pay me to perform bark or paint a watercolor, but I still play the piano from time to time, and very occasionally I pick up a pencil and a sketchbook. It doesn't matter if there's no economic value in the result. There's personal value for me in the process of trying to express myself.

That might seem obvious, but it's easy to forget. In debates about the rise of generative AI, people worry about the death of human creativity. But I don't think generative AI is more of a threat to human creativity than the camera or the record player. It changes the economics, to be sure. McGonigal lost his job as a weaver because of machine looms, so he would have understood all about losing work to a machine. But while a new technology changes who might be paid for creative work and what sort of creative work they might be paid for

and how much they might be paid for it, it doesn't make creative work impossible. All of us are free to sit down in front of a piano or an easel and try to create something beautiful. And while it's nice to succeed, it's more important to try. As we grow from children into adults, we often express our creativity less. It might be because we're afraid of failure.

Which is another thing to admire about McGonigal. He wasn't afraid of creative failure. In fact, he wouldn't recognize creative failure if it hurled an egg at him. That's one way to look at McGonigal anyway, as a man who was always willing to express his inner creativity. But that's not actually the way I see him. I don't think William McGonagall was admirable because he gave poetry a try. I think he was a genius.

You've perhaps heard the story about the man who goes to a doctor. He feels depressed. The world seems so frightening and bleak. Don't worry, says the doctor. The great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him perform. That'll cheer you up. The man starts to sob.

But doctor, I am Pagliacci. It's a story that's been retold and remixed countless times. So here's another remix. What if William McGonigal isn't the story? the pompous, talentless, sad victim of bullies that he seems to be? What if William McGonagall is the most brilliant clown who ever lived? And what if, unlike Paliachi, whose despair became clear when he took off the mask, McGonigal never removed his mask, because underneath it,

he was the one laughing harder than anyone. Think back to that appearance as Macbeth, in which McGonogical, refused to lie down and die and wrestled with the infuriated actor playing Macduff. It's hard to think of a funnier scene in the history of theatre. Was it really just McGonagall's arrogance and stupidity, or did he know full well that he was putting on a show? When the reviewer said that McGonagall had decided to astonish the gods,

he wasn't referring to some pagan pantheon, The Gods is theatre-speak for the cheap seats. McGonagall was playing to the crowd and specifically to the poorest theatre-goers of all, his friends from the workshop who'd all contributed to get him on stage in the first place, and they loved what they saw. McGonagall certainly gave you a show. And once you read McGonigall's poetry not as an exhibit of utter incompetence, but as a deliberate sly joke, you quickly detect hints of mischief.

A one poem, an ode to the moon, begins, Beautiful moon with thy silvery light, thou seemest most charming to my sight, as I gaze upon thee in the sky so high, a tear of joy does moisten mine eye. Just the usual clumsy cliché? No, McGonigle's winking at us. He knows what we're.

we do in the dark. The next verses celebrate the way that the moon provides light for the fox to steal a goose from the farmyard and the poacher to set his snares and Beautiful moon with thy silvery light, though cheerest the lovers in the night as they walk through the shady groves alone, making love to each other before they go home. Really? We're going to believe that William McGonagall was only accidentally funny? McGonagall is best known today for his poem about the Tay Bridge disaster. But in an early poem, he also describes the Tay Bridge when it was first built. Beautiful railway bridge of the silvery Tay, the longest of the present day

that has ever crossed o'er a tidal river stream, most gigantic to be seen, near by Dundee, and the Magdalene Green. At nearly two miles in length, it was an engineering miracle, but McGonigal was a Dundee local. And like any local, he would have known that the high girders of the central bridge

had already been blown down once during construction. Otherwise, why on earth include this verse? Beautiful railway bridge of the silvery tea. I hope that God will protect all passengers by night and by day, and that no accident will befall them while crossing the bridge of the silvery Tay,

for that would be most awful to be seen, near by Dundee and the Magdalene Green. This isn't the work of an idiot. It's the work of an old-school medieval fool, a court jester, using humour to speak truth to power. Two years later, the bridge was down and dozens of people were dead.

After a disaster at a shipyard which killed 38 people, McGonogall composed a long lament, including praise for £1,000 from the directors of the Thames Ironworks and Shipbuilding Company, which I hope will help to fill the bereaved ones' hearts with glee. Idiot or court jester? You be the judge. As for those prank letters, from Queen Victoria's secretary, from Dionne Boussico, from the King of Burma, maybe they were hoaxes on McGonagall, maybe there were hoaxes by McGonagall on the rest of us. They certainly helped to shape the legend.

For a man almost universally viewed as a failure, McGonigal knew how to draw a crowd, when a statue of Scotland's greatest poet Robert Burns was unveiled in Dundee, McGonigal was kept away from the occasion by police to avoid a disturbance of the peace. His Dundee performances so often ended in a near riot that he was eventually banned from giving any more recitals in the town. No wonder he died in poverty.

He'd been making 15 shillings a night the equivalent of a week's wages for an ordinary labourer, not so bad for a man who lost his trade because of the march of the machines. His downfall wasn't because his poems were terrible. It was because his clowning performances were too riotously successful to be allowed to continue.

He died in poverty, not because he was bad, but because he was just too good. We'll never know what William McGonagall was really thinking as he took to the stage each night. Was he oblivious as he seems to be? A man with skin so thick that neither insults nor insights ever got through?

Or was he far more tragic than the mythic figure of Paliachi the clown, proud of his poems but knowingly subjecting himself to knightly humiliation because there was no other way to put food on the table? Or was the whole thing a comic, Masterstroke. Did he never take off the mask, or did he never put it on in the first place? But while we can't read his mind, we can read his poems. And they've brought pleasure to countless people.

A few years ago, an Edinburgh auction house put up for sale a collection of first editions of Harry Potter books, signed by the author J.K. Rowling, who, it turns out, named Professor Minerva McGonagall in honour of the man she described as the worst poet in British history. The books went for a handsome enough price, I suppose. But in the same auction, a rather higher sum was paid for a different literary gem. 35 poems by William McGonagall. Some of them signed by the great man himself. J.K. Rowling.

If commercial success is the mark of a great artist, then she's one of the best. But she's no William McGonagall. He will be remembered for a very long time. For a full list of our sources, see the show notes at Tim Harford.com. Cautionary Tales is written by me, Tim Harford, with Andrew Wright, Alice Fines, and Ryan Dilley. It's produced by Georgia Mills and Marilyn Rust. The sound design and original music are the work of Pascal Wise. Additional sound design is by Carlos San Juan at Brain Audio.

Ben Nadaf Haffrey edited the scripts. The show features the voice talents of Genevieve Gaunt, Melanie Guthridge, Stella Harford, Oliver Hembra, Sarah Jop, Marseille Munro, Jamal Westman and Rufus Wright. The show also wouldn't have been possible without the work of Jacob Weisberg, Greta Cohn, Sarah Nix, Eric Sandler, Carrie Brody, Christina Sullivan, Keir Raposie and Owen Miller. Cautionary Tales is a production of Pushkin Industries.

It's recorded at Wardor Studios in London by Noria Bar and Lucy Rowe. If you like the show, please remember to share, rate and review. It really makes a difference to us. And if you want to hear the show, ad-free, sign up to Pushkin Plus on the show page on Apple Podcasts or at Pushkin.fm. plus.