It remains one of the worst railway disaster in Britains history.
Illustration of the Tay Bridge disaster.
The Disaster
The Firth of Tay is a long and narrow coastal inlet on Scotlands east coast.
The Tay bridge was nearly two miles long, and at the time was thelongest bridge inthe world.
All 70 people on board perished in the cold waters of River Tay.
The incident sent a shockwave through the Victorian engineering profession and the general public.
The bridge had been open for less than a year and half.
An inquiry was held and the bridges designer, Thomas Bouch, was found guilty of bad design.
His reputation ruined, Bouchs health began to decline from guilt and shame.
He died on 30 October 1880, a few months after the public inquiry into the disaster was over.
The Tay Bridge after it collapsed.
Photo credit: National Library of Scotland
A failed iron rivet from the original Tay bridge.
Photo credit:Roger Marks/Flickr
The Poem
William Topaz McGonagallwas bornin Edinburgh in 1825 or 1830.
Before McGonagall found his calling as a poet, he displayed keenness in performance art.
In 1877, McGonagall discovered he wanted to be a poet.
The very first poem he wrote had all the characteristic styles that would define his career spanning 25 years.
The poem entitled, An Address to the Rev.
George Gilfillan began:
All hail to the Rev.
McGonagall began travelling and performing across Scotland, reciting his poems in pubs, theatres and public houses.
The public was both entertained and appalled at the same time.
They would often cheer him, perhaps recognizing that McGonagall was so giftedly bad he backed unwittingly into genius.
Ironically, it was persistence and the major lack of talent through which he achieved fame.
McGonagall wrote over two hundred awful poems.
Here is the entire poem:
The Tay Bridge Disaster
Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silvry Tay!Alas!
The present Tay Bridge, showing stumps of the original bridge’s piers poking above the Tay.
Photo credit:nz_willowherb/Flickr
Photo credit:Neil Williamson/Flickr
