If he had been thanked for a written collection of his works, how much more might he gain from a live performance? The queen was staying just fifty miles away in Balmoral Castle; he would walk through the mountains to see her.

Alas, it was not to be. In what would become a pattern in McGonagall’s career, he made the whole trip only to fall at the last hurdle, which in this case was a sergeant at the gate of the castle who observed, “You’re not the queen’s poet! Lord Tennyson is the queen’s poet!” and sent him packing back to Dundee.

It still gave him a story to tell the local papers, and he followed it up with poems on a wide range of subjects: local beauty spots, famous people, historical events, news stories at home – all could inspire a new poem. The newly penned ode would be printed onto broadsheets and McGonagall would tread the streets of Dundee selling them. In the evenings, when possible, he would secure a venue in which to give a live performance. Word soon spread about the poet’s abilities, and audiences would turn up with rotten food and other missiles, ready to show their appreciation. If this reception discouraged McGonagall, he never showed it. No praise was too faint for him to latch onto as proof of his powers, whilst any critics were given short shrift. McGonagall himself described one such incident in a piece he wrote (in the third person) for the Dundee People’s Journal entitled “Poet McGonagall’s Tour Through Fife”. During a trip to Dunfermline in 1879,

[h]e called upon the Worthy Chief Templar who received him in a very unchristian manner, by telling him he could not assist him, and besides telling William his poetry was very bad; so William told him it was so very bad that Her Majesty had thanked him for what he had condemned, and left him, telling him at the same time he was an enemy and he would report him.

 

Soon he was styling himself as Dundee’s official poet and attempting to take part in whatever ceremonies and parades might take place. He was rarely successful, but could still write a poem about the event and sell a few copies on the street. When not performing in Dundee, he would tour the local neighbourhood, doing shows for bemused villagers or visiting larger towns at the behest of some local literary group in search of fun.

In 1880 he boarded a ship for London, seeking to make his fortune in what was then the biggest city in the world. Sadly, no theatre would have him and, as performing on the street was beneath his dignity, he was back in Dundee within the week. Seven years later he embarked on an even greater adventure, crossing the Atlantic to try his luck in New York. Alas, he was no more successful over there and was soon on the boat back to Scotland.

Back home he secured a regular spot in a local circus, declaiming his verse as best he could to a crowd well-armed with eggs, flour, herrings, potatoes and stale bread. By now over sixty years of age, McGonagall would withstand this barrage for the princely sum of fifteen shillings a night. However, these riotous affairs attracted the attention of the city’s magistrates who placed a ban on further performances. It was a bitter blow to McGonagall. In response, he wrote:

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 ye 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.

He added a few highlights from his poetic oeuvre:

Who was’t that immortalised the old and the new railway bridges of the Silvery Tay?

Also the inauguration of the Hill of Balgay?

Likewise the Silvery Tay rolling on its way?

And the Newport Railway?

Besides the Dundee Volunteers?

Which met with their approbation and hearty cheers.

And has it come to this in Bonnie Dundee?

The magistrates remained unmoved, and William sloped off to Glasgow to attempt to ply his trade there. Once again he failed to thrive, and was back home after a month, although something good was about to come from his misfortune. In April 1890, his friends rallied round and organised the publication of a slender volume of Poetic Gems, selected from the works of Mr William McGonagall, with biographical sketch by the author, and portrait. Two hundred copies were sold immediately, and a copy inscribed by the author was lodged in Dundee’s Free Library.

Book sales and more broadsheets allowed him just enough money to live, but appeals to the home secretary to overturn the magistrates’ ban fell on deaf ears, as did one for a pension paid from the civil list and backed by the signatures of hundreds of Dundee citizens. Sadly, not all Dundonians were so supportive and his continuing mistreatment in the city’s streets caused him, in 1893, to write an angry verse, threatening to leave the city. One newspaper archly observed, “When he discovers the full value of the circumstance that Dundee rhymes with 1893, he may be induced to reconsider his decision and stay for yet a year.”

So it proved, with McGonagall finding new ways to earn a crust. He was an early pioneer of the celebrity endorsement. For a few lines in praise of a local tweed manufacturer, he was given a new suit of the stuff. Next, he tried his hand at advertising, singing the praises of Beecham’s Pills and Sunlight Soap, the latter earning him the sum of two guineas. It wasn’t enough though, and in October 1894 he and his wife finally took leave of a city that had been their home for over fifty years.

At first he moved just twenty miles up the Tay valley to Perth, a town where he had always received a good reception. While there, he was sent an extraordinary package purporting to have come from the court of King Theebaw of Burma. Contained within were a small silver elephant and a letter conferring upon him a knighthood in the Burmese Order of the White Elephant. It was a hoax of course, but if McGonagall saw through it, he wasn’t letting on.