One of the most visited memorials in Greyfriars Kirkyard is that of William McGonagall. This is in the West Yard, beside the gates to Heriot’s School. Everyday crowds of folk peer up at this modern shiny black memorial. Most come here because of the association with the Professor of Transfiguration character in Harry Potter, who bears the name Minerva McGonagall (brilliantly played by Maggie Smith in the movies).
Other visitors come here to celebrate the man who proudly bears the title of “Scotland’s Worst Poet”, or who liked to style himself later in his life as “Sir William Topaz McGonagall, Knight of the White Elephant of Burmah”. Well before Harry Potter was written, William McGonagall had legions of adoring fans, many with a rich sense of humour. These fans thought that their poetic hero should be memorialised in both Dundee (where he spent most of his life) and in Edinburgh (where he spent his final years).
He was finally recognised by the people of Dundee in 1997, who said of McGonagall that he was, “So giftedly bad, he backed unwittingly into genius” and then in 1999 they finally achieved their wish for a memorial in Edinburgh, when the shiny black plaque was installed at Greyfriars.
But why is it in this place telling the world that William McGonagall is buried “near this spot”. Let us consider how likely it is that William McGonagall is actually buried anywhere near here at all.
William’s date and place of birth is uncertain (but Ireland in 1825 seems most likely), but we know for a fact that it was in Edinburgh where he died penniless and largely forgotten at 5 South College Street in 1902. The death was duly recorded by the City as being at 4pm on 29th September 1902 as a result of a cerebral haemorrhage. However a search of the City records for details of his burial turns up nothing. Perhaps the least likely place he would have been buried in Edinburgh was the West Yard in Greyfriars. The reason being that the West Yard never had any “common burials” (being burials of the poor in unmarked graves). Furthermore, post 1870 there were no further common burials anywhere in Greyfriars. After that date the only burials here were of individual Family members of those who had long standing burial rights to use their family burial lairs. Such people were the well heeled, not the penniless poets. Non of Edinburgh’s cemeteries have a burial record for William McGonagall. It is possible he was taken to be buried in Dundee, or perhaps he was buried in a Roman Catholic cemetery, possibly Mount Vernon, Edinburgh’s Catholic Cemetery that opened in 1895.
So whilst we don’t know where William McGonagall was actually buried, it seems the most unlikely place of all would be in the West Yard at Greyfriars. So, unless you know differently, I think that modern shiny black plaque is telling us a story. But hey, we all like a good story (or poem), don’t we ?
