Marx and Tay Bridge Disaster

[Danvers Carew]

According to an article in the paper the other day, there's a story that Karl Marx was supposed to have been a passenger on the train that crashed during the Tay Bridge Disaster but had to cancel due to illness. Now I've never heard such a story before, but it seems to be reasonably well known - Wikipedia mentions it as an urban myth on their Tay Bridge page, for instance.

It certainly sounds like an urban myth ("wow, how different the world might have turned out had Marx caught that train!"), except it's not terribly good because the Tay Bridge Disaster was in 1879, at which point Marx had already written all his major works (he died in 1883) so it wouldn't have made a tremendous amount of difference to the world if he'd died in the Tay Bridge Disaster.

So I wonder where this story came from - is there any truth to it at all?

[Embra]

The myth is repeated in Christian Century in its 25 January 2003 edition:

... that in 1870 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were planning to travel on a train that plunged into an inlet in Scotland when the bridge under it collapsed, taking 75 on board to their watery graves? Luckily for them, Marx and Engels had changed their plans, deciding instead to spend the night at a friend's place in Edinburgh

Unfortunately for Christian Century the disaster was in 1879.

This website places Marx in Scotland in September 1878:

Marx, accompanied by his wife and daughter Eleanor, takes a cure in Neuenahr (Germany) and Scotland

I can't find any reference to his going to Edinburgh at all - which is where the train was coming from - or any later than 1878.

Beautiful Railway Bridge of the Silv'ry Tay!
Alas! I am very sorry to say
That Karl Marx's life has been taken away
On the last Sabbath day of 1879,
Which will be remember'd for a very long time

(apologies to McGonagall)

[Danvers Carew]

Thanks Embra! Well Marx seems to have been in Scotland within a year of the disaster, which is better than I expected.

Oh! ill-fated Communist dead in the Tay,
I must now conclude my lay
By telling the world fearlessly without the least dismay,
That your principles of collectivism and the abolition of private ownership would not have given way,
At least many sensible men do say,
Had they been supported on each side by the lumpenproletariat,
At least many sensible men say that:
For the stronger we our politics do build,
The less chance we have of being killed.

[DevilBunny]

It's good to know that McGonagall's genius is still celebrated

[Andrew of Ware]

Originally Posted by Embra

(apologies to McGonagall)

'Scuse me - but he should be apologising to us!

There was a poet from the Land of the Scot,
Who put pen to paper rather a lot,
He wrote many a verse,
But he went from bad to worse,
And all that he wrote was rot!

(apologies to Edward Lear)