The Famous Tay Whale / William McGonagall

"The Famous Tay Whale" is a poem by William Topaz McGonagall about a humpback whale hunted and killed in 1883 in the Firth of Tay near Dundee, Scotland, then the UK's main whaling port.

The Tay whale came to public prominence when it was subject to a public dissection by Sir John Struthers and taken on a tour of the UK. Its skeleton now resides in the McManus Galleries in Dundee city centre.



McGonagall's poem was set to music by the composer Mátyás Seiber in 1958. The premiere performance of this work - scored for orchestra, foghorn, espresso coffee machine and narrator - took place at the second of Gerard Hoffnung's music festivals, with Edith Evans in the role of the narrator.