On this day in 1952

Racing driver John Cobb was killed on Loch Ness when attempting to set a water speed record. He had already set the land speed record in 1928, 1939 and 1947, so an attempt at the water speed record, five years later, must have seemed a logical next step, as it would allow him to hold the two records – water and land – simultaneously.

Cobb had been practicing for six on Loch Ness in a jet-powered boat called Crusader before he made his fateful attempt at the record. Then on the afternoon of 29 September, after taking the craft up to 206mph, he hit a wake in the otherwise flat water. The craft tilted down, its nose went under the water, and it disintegrated. Cobb was killed instantly, and the pieces of his boat sank to the bottom of the Loch.

Wreckage found

The remains of the boat were located in 2002 and later designated a Scheduled Monument by Historic Environment Scotland. It explained the scheduling on the basis that “the monument is of national importance as the remains of the speedboat ‘Crusader’. The monument is unique as an example of the efforts of mid-twentieth century record-breaking attempts in Scotland, and also has the potential to contribute to our understand of the broader history of Loch Ness. Cobb’s death in this attempt is a part of the national consciousness”.

Although the cause of the wake is unknown, some who believe in the Loch Ness Monster have claimed that it was to blame.

By reaching 206mph, Cobb had exceeded the existing water speed record – which then stood at 178mph – but, as he was unable to repeat the run, it didn’t count, and the previous record, set by Stanley Sayres, remained unbroken.

 

...and on this day in 1902

Sir William Topaz McGonagall, who styled himself Knight of the White Elephant of Burma, was born in Edinburgh (so he claimed, although this is disputed) and, after many years in Dundee, died in the Scottish capital aged 77.

“Probably no man got through life as a literary man with less literary taste, judgement and knowledge,” commented the Peterhead Sentinel and General Advertiser for the Buchan District on 4 October 1902. “If you have not seen any of William’s ‘poetry’ it is impossible to realise how amusing it could be without any such intention on the part of the bard who was firmly persuaded that he was one of the sweetest and greatest singers in Israel.”

Tay Bridge disaster

One of McGonagall’s best-known poems concerned the Tay Bridge disaster, in which 75 people lost their lives when the bridge over the Firth of Tay collapsed in a storm as a train was passing over it. McGonagall erroneously put the number of dead at 90:

So the train mov’d 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 ninety lives had been taken away…

Unfortunately, poetry was not a profitable business to be in, even then, and McGonagall found himself in the dock at Dundee Sheriff Small Debt Court to answer charges that he had not paid for any goods from his grocer for “the last six or eight months”, according to the Leeds Times of 8 June 1878

“When the case was called Mr McGonagall appeared in the witness-box… cleared his throat, and with a tragic air addressed the Sheriff:- ‘Well, sir, I am a handloom weaver, and the charge against me here is debt, and poverty is the cause of my being unable to pay. I am willing to pay if I am allowed time to do so.” When it was suggested that “he had given more of his time to other things – poetry and the drama – than to weaving” McGonagall didn’t deny it, but admitted that “I have no wages. Some weeks I might earn 7s or 10s, or 15s, but it is not very regular.”

McGonagall’s place in history

McGonagall’s reputation was such that he has been remembered long after his death. In a 24 April 1991 opinion piece in the Aberdeen Press and Journal, Ian Sutherland reported that a new society was actively promoting the cause of the man at whom “Victorian topers hurled refuse… as he hurried from hostelry to hostelry to deliver his works.”