William Topaz McGonagall ( March 1825 – 29 September 1902 ) was a Scottish weaver, doggerel poet and actor.

McGonagall moved north and was apprenticed as a handloom weaver in Dundee, following in his father's footsteps.

Despite the industrial revolution slowly making weavers obsolete, McGonagall appeared to prosper, as there was still need for skilled workers to perform tasks of great complexity.

The play should have ended with Macbeth's death, but McGonagall believed the actor playing Macduff was trying to upstage him, and refused to die.

McGonagall claimed he was inspired to become a poet when he " seemed to feel a strange kind of feeling stealing over, and remained so for about five minutes.

McGonagall told the man that " it was so very bad that Her Majesty had thanked for what Chief Templar had condemned.

McGonagall presented the letter but was refused entry and had to return home.

These were popular, the people of Dundee possibly recognising that McGonagall was " so giftedly bad he backed unwittingly into genius " He met with the ire of the publicans, on one occasion being pelted with peas for reciting a poem about the evils of " strong drink ".

In 1890, McGonagall was in dire straits financially.

Despite the fact that this was a fairly transparent hoax, McGonagall would refer to himself as " Sir William Topaz McGonagall, Knight of the White Elephant, Burmah " in his advertising for the rest of his life.

Here, McGonagall met with some success, becoming a " cult figure " and was in great demand.

* The memory of McGonagall was resurrected by comedian Spike Milligan.

* A collection of 35 broadsheet poems of McGonagall, the majority signed by him, was bought for £ 6, 600 ( including commission ) from Lyon & Turnbull, Edinburgh auctionneers, on 16 May 2008 .< ref >

The event was commemorated in a poem, The Tay Bridge Disaster, written by William McGonagall, a notoriously unskilled Scottish poet.

Crieff was immortalised by William McGonagall in his poem " Crieff "

In 1898 William McGonagall wrote Lines in Praise of Tommy Atkins, which was an attack on what McGonagall saw as the disparaging portrayal of Tommy in Kipling's poem.

This is the hospital where Arthur Weasley is sent after he was attacked by Voldemort's snake, Nagini, in the Ministry of Magic and Minerva McGonagall is hospitalised from severe stunning when Hagrid is forced out of Hogwarts.

A poem was later written about McLean's attempt on the Queen's life by William Topaz McGonagall ,< ref >

Most importantly, like McGonagall, she was drawn to themes of accident, disaster, and sudden death ; as has been said of A. E. Housman's A Shropshire Lad, in her pages you can count the dead and wounded.

The battle was celebrated by the Scottish doggerel poet William McGonagall:

The action was commemorated in verse by William McGonagall, the pipe march The Heights of Dargai by J. Wallace and the fiddle tune Dargai by James Scott Skinner.

McGonagall realised if he were to succeed as a poet, he required a patron and wrote to Queen Victoria.

William McGonagall wrote two other poems in praise of the Tay Bridge.

William McGonagall wrote a poem about this battle.

McGonagall had previously written a poem in praise of the Tay Bridge: " The Railway Bridge of the Silvery Tay " " With your numerous arches and pillars in so grand array ".

* McGonagall on the Relief of Mafeking – William McGonagall's poem and a brief history of the siege.

* The Tay Bridge Disaster, a poem written by Scottish poet William McGonagall

" The Tay Bridge Disaster " is a poem written in 1880 by the Scottish poet, William McGonagall, who has been widely acclaimed as the worst poet in British history.

The poem is by far the most famous ever written by McGonagall, and is still widely quoted.

* McGonagall on the Relief of Mafeking-William McGonagall's poem and a brief history of the siege.

William Topaz McGonagall produces his epic poem The Tay Bridge Disaster to commemorate the event.

* The Little Match Girl is retold in a poem by William McGonagall ( 1825 – 1902 )

* The Battle Of Abu Klea Full text of the poem, from McGonagall Online.

He was outraged by the book and announced that he had discovered fifty technical errors in its account of church practices.

The kiss outraged our friends but it was done and meanwhile had released in me all the remote, exciting premonitions of lust, all the mysterious sensations that I had imagined a truly consummated kiss would convey to me.

He provoked outraged editorials when, after a post-Inaugural inspection of the White House with Mrs. Kennedy, he remarked to reporters, `` We just cased the joint to see what was there ''.

For instance, in 51, Agrippina ordered the execution of Britannicus ’ tutor Sosibius because he had confronted her and was outraged by Claudius ’ adoption of Nero and his choice of Nero as successor, instead of choosing his own son Britannicus.

Shortly after Lincoln's death, Gen. William T. Sherman reported he had, without consulting Washington, reached an armistice agreement with Confederate Gen. Joseph E. Johnston, an agreement which was unacceptable to the President and outraged Stanton, since it made no provision for emancipation of slaves or freedmen's rights.

When Kidd found out what had happened, he was outraged and forced his men to return most of the stolen property.

Charles was outraged, and upon their return in October, he and Buckingham demanded that King James declare war on Spain.

This development outraged Austria-Hungary, who was Russia's chief competitor for influence in the Balkan region ( despite being an ally of the Russians and the Germans in the Three Emperors ' League ).

According to Allen's account he was outraged, and left his visitors with veiled threats, indicating that attempts to enforce the judgment would be met with resistance.

One year later, he was outraged and agitated by a paper presented by Julius König at the Third International Congress of Mathematicians.

The Covenanter government was outraged by Parliament's execution of Charles I in 1649, carried out in the face of their strongest objections.

The British goal was efficient administration but Hindus were outraged at the apparent " divide and rule " strategy.

The British public was outraged and took delight in bloody vengeance, including mass-killings of civilians.

He was also a Confederate sympathizer vehement in his denunciation of the Lincoln Administration and outraged by the South's defeat in the American Civil War.

Calvin was particularly outraged when Servetus sent him a copy of the Institutes of the Christian Religion heavily annotated with arguments pointing to errors in the book.

According to Jacques Barzun: Voltaire, who had felt annoyed by the first essay the Arts and Sciences, was outraged by the second, on the Origin of Inequality Among Men, declaring that Rousseau wanted us to “ walk on all fours ” like animals and behave like savages, believing them creatures of perfection.

Additionally, his condemnation of Blaesilla's hedonistic lifestyle in Rome had led her to adopt aescetic practices, but it affected her health and worsened her physical weakness to the point that she died just four months after starting to follow his instructions ; much of the Roman populace were outraged at Jerome for causing the premature death of such a lively young woman, and his insistence to Paula that Blaesilla should not be mourned, and complaints that her grief was excessive, were seen as heartless, polarising Roman opinion against him.

Jahangir was outraged by the capture of the ship and the captivity of its crew and guests.

Loach opposes censorship in cinema and was outraged at the " 18 " certificate given to Sweet Sixteen.

It was while he was in London in late 1935 that he heard the news of Fascist Italy's invasion of Abyssinia, an event that outraged the young Nkrumah and influenced his political development.

This second victory outraged the Yoshioka family, whose head was now the 12-year old Yoshioka Matashichiro.

Sasaki's outraged supporters thought it was dishonorable and disrespectful, while Musashi's supporters thought it was a fair way to unnerve his opponent.

The Sri Lankan camp was outraged after the incident, but the ICC leapt to Hair's defence, outlining a list of steps they had taken in the past to determine, without result, the legitimacy of Muralitharan's action .< ref name =" Muralitharan no-balled by Hair